tax” sufficient to cover losses. Manifestly the insurance department cannot determine the acreage tax until it knows the number of acres to be subjected to the tax. And this it can only know from the returns made to it by the county auditors. There is no provision for revising these returns, or for assessing any acreage that might have been omitted from affidavits of owners and returns of assessors. If the plaintiff had not sustained loss, it is certain that, under the law, he could not have been rendered liable for any indemnity tax. No method is provided for rendering him liable in the absence of action by the assessor or his own voluntary return. Nothing could be more clear, we think, than that the legislature did not intend to enable owners to speculate by holding their land free from the tax, with the mental reservation that, in the event of a storm, they would submit to the tax and collect for their losses. This would not be insurance, but a fraud on those who, in good faith, co-operate to effect insurance under the law.
Upon the argument, reference was made to some amendments of the Hail Insurance Law adopted at the last regular legislative session (1921). These amendments simply render more clear the.intention of the legislature to have the law applied in the manner herembefore indicated. In other words, they render absolutely certain that construction which was reasonably certain before the amendments. It follows from what, has been said that the order appealed from is erroneous and must be reversed. It is so ordered.
Robinson, Ch. J., and Christianson and Bronson, JJ., concur.
Grace, J. 1 concur in the result.
