Mayor and Town Council of Vinemont v. Allison, et al.

Mayor and Town Council of Vinemont v. Allison, et al. Bill to Restrain Collection of Taxes. (Decided January 14, 1915, Rehearing denied February 4, 1915. 68 South. 142.) Municipal Corporations; Taxation; Proceedings to Enforce.— Where a municipality instituted chancery proceedings to enforce the collection of taxes, under section 1313, 1319, 1320 and 1322, Code 1907, and the taxpayers filed defenses, and the cause was regularly continued, the chancellor properly granted an order restraining the officers of the municipality from enforcing the collection of such taxes as it was undertaking to do under section 1313, since its jurisdiction had already attached and should be protected in the processes of adjudging the rights of the parties. Appeal from Cullman Chancery Court. Heard before Hou. W. H. Simpson. Proceedings by the mayor and town council of Vinemont against certain taxpayers of the town to collect the municipal taxes. Prom am interlocutory order restraining the further attempt to collect the taxes, pending a continuance of the cause, the town authorities appeal. Affirmed. A. A. Griffith, for appellant. W. E. Tumlin, for appellee. [MAJORITY — McCLELLAN, j.] McCLELLAN, j. This is an appeal from an interlocutory order restraining officers of the municipality of Vinemont from enforcing the collection of certain taxes claimed as being due tbe municipality from certain individuals, who are complainants in this petition or bill, and commanding tbe restoration to them of certain personal property. It appears from tbe petition, or bill, set out in tbis transcript that tbe municipality bad previously instituted in tbe chancery court of Cullman county proceedings allowed under tbe system provided in Code, §§ 1319, 1320, 1322, for tbe collection of municipal taxes, and that tbe parties against whom taxes were claimed bad filed defenses in the chancery court, as section 1322 contemplates may be done. Tbe causes thus on the chancery docket were regularly continued, because it is asserted tbe parties bad not prepared tbe causes for submission to tbe court. After tbis order of continuance bad been entered, tbe officers of tbe municipality undertook tbe enforcement of tbe asserted tax demands by executions issued under (we assume) Code, §§ 1312, 1313. According to tbe applicable principle recognized in Coxe v. Huntsville Gas Co., 129 Ala. 496, 29 South. 867, and Parrish v. Reese, 165 Ala. 638, 51 South. 824, tbe learned chancellor was entirely correct in directing the issuance of tbe interlocutory order indicated, to tbe end that tbe jurisdiction of bis court, already awakened and attached, might be protected in tbe processes ■of adjudging tbe rights of these parties to tbe original proceeding under Code, § 1322. Tbe decretal order, awarding tbe writ here brought under question, is affirmed. Affirmed. Anderson, C. J., and Sayre and de Graffenried, JJ., •concur.