Mayor of Baltimore v. Austin

Jones, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. There are eighty-two appeals in the record now before us. In each and all the cases in which the appeals have been taken the Court below passed the following order: “ The question involved in this case having been argued and ⁹¹ decided in the case of Derick Fahnestock v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore et al., in this Court, at this term, and no appeal from the final order therein passed having been taken within the time allowed by law; it is on this eleventh day of November, 1901, adjudged and ordered by the Baltimore City Court, that the assessments made by the Appeal Tax Court, upon the membership of the petitioner and appellant, in the Baltimore Stock Exchange, to wit, $3,500 for the year 1901, and $10,000 for the year 1902, be and the same is hereby vacated and annulled, the defendants to pay the costs of these proceedings. ” The cases were in that Court on appeal from the Appeal Tax Court of Baltimore City under sec. 170 of the Charter of the City of Baltimore (Act of 1898, ch. 123, repealing and reenacting Art. 4, Code of Public Local Laws—Title, “ City of Baltimore),” which provides that “any person or persons, or corporation assessed for real or personal property in the city of Baltimore and claiming to be aggrieved, because of any assessment made by the said Court, or because of its failure to reduce or abate any existing assessment, may by petition appeal to the Baltimore City Court to review the assessment. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore may also appeal from any decision of said Court to the Baltimore City Court if it deem the public interests require that the decision of said Court should be reviewed.

The petition in such appeal, other than the petition of the city, shall set forth that the assessment is illegal, specifying the grounds of the alleged illegality, or is erroneous by reason of over valuation, or is unequal in that the assessment has been made by a higher proportion of valuation than other real or personal property on the same tax roll by the same officers, and that the petitioner is, or will be, injured by such illegality, unequal or erroneous assessment.” Then, after prescribing what the petition of the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore “ shall set forth ” in case of the appeal being taken by the city, and certain regulations for securing to the parties in interest a full review of the decision or action of the Appeal Tax Court when appealed from, it is provided that the ⁹² “ Baltimore City Court shall have full power to hear and fully examine the subject and decide on said appeals * * and may cause all or any of such appeals to be consolidated, or may hear and decide them separately; ” and that “ the person or the city appealing ' * * shall have a trial before the Court without the intervention of a jury, and the Court sitting without a jury shall ascertain or decide on the proper assessment,” See. And finally it is provided that an appeal may be taken to this Court from the action or decision of the Baltimore City Court. In the cases in the record the petitions which brought up the appeals to the Baltimore City Court each alleged that the petitioner had been assessed for taxation by the “ Appeal Tax Court for the year 1901, the sum of $3,500, and for the year 1902, the sum of $10,000 for his membership in the Baltimore Stock Exchange, a voluntary, unincorporated association of stock brokers in Baltimore City; ” that he was “ aggrieved by the decision ” of the Appeal Tax Court “ holding that his said membership or right to a seat in the Baltimore Stock Exchange is assessable for taxation,” because “ said membership is not assessable for taxation as real or personal property under the laws of this State, but is a privilege the right to which is taxed under the license fee which * * petitioner pays as a stock broker; and because “ said privilege is greatly overvalued in said assessments.” In twenty-six of the cases in the record in addition to the above allegations of grounds of appeal it was alleged that the petitioners were not residents of the city of Baltimore ; and in twelve of them it was alleged that the petitioners were, some of them, not members; others not full members of the Stock Exchange. Upon each of these petitions an order such as has been recited was passed by the Baltimore City Court.

These orders of that Court being adverse to the contention of the city of Baltimore in the cases in which they were passed the city has appealed. It appears from the record that the cases were not consolidated, but that a separate order was passed in each case ; and in each there is an appeal. They were argued together, however, and as they are all iden ⁹³ tical in the aspect in which they are before this Court they may be disposed of as if there was but one case. It will be seen from the provisions of law under which these cases arose and from the petitions upon which they were brought into the Baltimore City Court that in dealing with them there was devolved upon that Court an inquiry into, and a decision upon, questions both of law and of fact.

In the recent case of Mayor & C. C. of Balto. v. Bonaparte, 93 Md. 156 , which was one arising under the same provision of the City Charter of Baltimore as the cases at bar are based upon, it was held by this Court that in cases brought here on appeal under that provision mere questions of fact were not reviewable on such appeal. Even, therefore, if such questions were presented by the record, which they are not, they would not be here subject to review. Before passing upon any question of law we must ascertain from the record what questions are presented for decision. Rule 4 of this Court provides that “in no case shall the Court of Appeals decide any point or question which does not plainly appear by the record to have been tried and decided by the Court below. ” The language of the rule is a reiteration of that of the provision to the like effect contained in section 9 of Article 5 of the Code.

This rule has been