Bornstein Sea Foods, Inc. v. Whatcom County

345 P.2d 601, 55 Wash. 2d 44, 1959 Wash. LEXIS 485

• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Decided: November 5, 1959
• Docket: 34831
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mallery, J.

The plaintiff brought this action to recover its property which was sold to defendant W. B. Albright at a tax sale.

On July 2, 1946, Charles A. Bornstein and Joanne V. Bornstein, his wife, and Myer A. Bornstein and Teresa M. Bornstein, his wife, purchased real property located in Whatcom county from Ethel W. Evans. They recorded their warranty deed with the Whatcom county auditor on December 9, 1947. On the surface, the land appears as a unit and was conveyed as such in one deed. However, a section line runs through it so that part of the land is in section 30 and part is in section 31. The description of the land covers over one-half page of single-spaced typing in the deed and contains over four hundred words and figures.

It is the established practice of the Whatcom county treasurer’s office to send an employee each day to the auditor’s office to make a transcript of all deeds recorded that day. The employee makes two copies, listing the deed number, the amount of revenue stamps on the deed, the name of the seller, the name of the buyer, and the legal description of the property. One copy is kept in the treasurer’s office, and the other copy is given to the assessor from which he changes the plates on his addressograph machine that prints the names on the tax roll. The treasurer uses the same machine to send out tax statements. A correct transcript of the above deed was made by the treasurer’s employee. However, someone in the assessor’s office failed to include in the assessor’s addressograph plate the three bottom lines of the long description as they appeared in the deed.

The result of this error was that the tax statements sent out by the treasurer did not include the land in section 31. As a second consequence, the land appeared to remain in the name of Ethel W. Evans in the assessor’s records.

When the grantees conveyed the land to their family corporation in 1950, the assessor’s office did not record the change as to section 31, because, for the reason stated above, its records indicated that title to it was still in Ethel W. Evans. The tax statements on the land in section 31 were thus in error in respect to the name of the owner to which it was assessed from 1947 to 1953, when the parcel was sold for taxes.

The plaintiff was unaware of the county’s error and thought it had paid the taxes on all of the land included in the recorded conveyances. Immediately upon plaintiff learning of the foreclosure sale of the part of the land lying in section 31, which was omitted from the tax statements, and the purchase of it by defendant W. B. Albright, it made timely demand upon him for the return of the property, together with an offer to pay all taxes and other expenses incurred by him in connection with the sale.

Defendant W. B. Albright refused to return the property, and this action ensued. The trial court quieted title in defendant W. B. Albright, and the plaintiff appeals.

The appellant’s position is that it attempted to pay the taxes and was misled into believing it had done so by the erroneous tax statements.

The trial court found that appellant at all times thought the tax statements covered the entire tract and was unaware that the taxes had not been paid on any part of it. The legal description on the tax statement was continued over several pages in a highly abbreviated form, so that anyone unfamiliar with such matters would find it very difficult to comprehend.

The appellant had a right to rely upon the accuracy of the county’s tax rolls and statements. Culpability for tax-statement errors do not attach to the taxpayer if he acts in good faith and without notice of the defect.

Since 1907, in an unbroken line of cases construing tax-lien foreclosure statutes, we have adhered to the principle expressed in Nalley v. Hanson, 11 Wn. (2d) 76, 118 P. (2d) 435, as follows:

“ . . . However, the legal principle which this court has consistently followed in just such cases as this is that an effort made in good faith by the property owner to pay his taxes is equivalent to payment, to the extent that it will discharge the lien of the tax and bar a sale for nonpayment thereof. Schultz v. Kolb, 189 Wash. 187, 64 P. (2d) 79. ... ”

It was not contended that the appellant had notice of the county’s error or that it did not intend to pay its taxes.

The judgment is reversed.

Finley, Rosellini, Ott,-Foster, and Hunter, JJ., concur.