Opinion
June Term, 1897.
Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, on opinion of Special Term. All concurred.
The following is the opinion of the Special Term:
No case is made for a reduction of the assessment by a writ of certiorari. The assessors had jurisdiction of the subject of taxation and of the relator so far as the railroad was in the town. The general rule is that where a body of assessors have made the assessment using their judgment, and not capriciously or in an arbitrary manner, the assessment will not be reviewed. ( People ex rel. Edison Electric Ill. Co. v. Barker, 139 N.Y. 55; People ex rel. Edison Gen. El. Co. v. Barker, 141 id. 251; People ex rel. Equitable Gas Light Co. v. Barker, 144 id. 102.) In the absence of evidence to the contrary the assessors are presumed to have done their duty. ( People ex rel. Manhattan R. Co. v. Barker, 146 N.Y. 304.) Upon the evidence the value put upon the land is not excessive. The railroad owns a strip of suburban and farm land adjacent to the city of Poughkeepsie some sixty-six feet in width and some three miles in length. The present corporation bought a road of thirty-four miles for $50,000 and over on foreclosure and at once put it in order at an expense of $150,000, or about that sum. The road is not completed. From Stissing to Pine Plains it has not been built but obtained a right to use the track of another road for that distance. At the actual cost paid for it at a recent sale the road is worth for its whole length $6,000 a mile. A reasonable discrimination in favor of the town land next to the city of Poughkeepsie may properly be made and it was made in respect to the two other roads running through the town. Under the proof given on the trial the assessment appealed from cannot be reduced. Motion denied, with ten dollars costs.