Brinker v. Auditor General

62 N.W.2d 635, 339 Mich. 84, 1954 Mich. LEXIS 413
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 18, 1954
DocketDocket 8, 9, Calendar 45,962, 45,963
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 62 N.W.2d 635 (Brinker v. Auditor General) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brinker v. Auditor General, 62 N.W.2d 635, 339 Mich. 84, 1954 Mich. LEXIS 413 (Mich. 1954).

Opinion

Reid, J.

The above entitled 2 cases were consolidated for the purpose of hearing. In one case petitioners seek to set aside a tax sale in the proceeding-for the sale of lands for taxes of 1942 so far as concerns the sale and proceedings leading to the sale of a 2-acre tract owned by petitioner Loretta Brink-er. The other case is a bill in chancery to require defendants Cecil to repay to plaintiffs, $4,900 with interest from April 24, 1947, which sum of money plaintiff paid defendants Cecil for a quitclaim deed *87 of the 2 acres in question, defendants Cecil being purchasers at the scavenger sale.

Plaintiff Loretta being the owner of the land before the sale to the State for tax delinquency, is the person hereinafter spoken of as plaintiff. Plaintiff claims that she made a good-faith effort to pay the taxes of 1942 in the month of October, 1942, at which time she paid the delinquent taxes for 1941 and 1940 upon said 2 acres; that she paid such delinquent taxes to the county treasurer for Macomb county and received from the county treasurer, or a clerk at his office, the assurance that notices of future taxes would be mailed to her. Plaintiff further claims that the proceedings for the sale of the 2 acres for the taxes of 1942 ought to be set aside because she did not receive notice of the fact of such taxes being delinquent after having been assured that she would receive the notice.

Plaintiff Loretta was the owner of 12.13 acres of land in Warren township, situated westerly of a dead-end street (Lorraine street) which leads out to Twelve-Mile road and situate parallel with and about a half mile east of Yan Dyke avenue. Plaintiff’s sister Leona Brinkman had owned the 12.13 acres. Her father had bought the land from a Mr. Hartsig and after her father’s death, plaintiff’s sister Leona Brinkman obtained the vendee’s interest in the 12.13 acres. Plaintiff and her husband had a different piece of property which in 1939 they exchanged for vendee’s interest in the 12.13 acres (hereinafter referred to as 12 acres) which had been bought by Leona Brinkman.

Plaintiff paid $500 for the 12 acres to Mr. Hartsig who seems to have had a vendor’s interest in the 12-acre tract prior to that time. The 12 acres was without frontage on any highway and plaintiff bought a 2-acre tract from her sister Leona Brinkman for $200 in 1940, but the deed, exhibit 2 (apparently of *88 vendor’s interest) was from Har'tsig and wife to plaintiff Loretta. The purchase of the 2-aere tract was necessary in order to connect the 12-acre tract with the highway, Lorraine street. Plaintiff knew at the time she paid up the taxes in 1942 that the 2-acre tract was assessed in the name of her sister Leona Brinkman. She testified:

“I never paid a tax on the 12 acres before it actually became delinquent.”

Plaintiff further testified,

“Tax bills were sent to Leona Brinkman instead of Loretta Brinker.”

And further,

“I know that people pay their taxes to the township treasurer.”

Plaintiff testified,

“The taxes were never sent to me but to my sister Leona Brinkman.”

Plaintiff did not record her deed to the 2 acres until she had settled with the defendants Cecil in 1947 as hereinafter set forth. She never went to the township office, never gave her address to the township treasurer nor requested him to mail the tax statements to her. She deliberately adopted a plan of letting her taxes become delinquent until they were returned to the county treasurer as delinquent. Plaintiff claims to have had little education but she went through the 8th grade in the schools.

In explanation of her not putting her deed to the 2 acres on record, she swears to a remarkable story, that she took it to the register of deeds and said she wanted to record it and that she (meaning a clerk in the register of deeds’ office) wouldn’t listen to plaintiff but said, “You’re riot a widow and you ought to *89 have your husband’s signature on it,” that the clerk refused to record the deed and told plaintiff to take it back to Mr. Hartsig and tell him to put plaintiff’s husband’s name on it and “She threw the deed at me.” It is incredible that a clerk in the register of deeds’ office in Mt. Clemens ever gave her such gratuitous and utterly uncalled for and improper advice or refused to record a properly-executed and tentered deed or told her that her husband’s signature as a grantee was necessary on the deed. The many inconsistencies in the testimony of plaintiff are persuasive of the unreliability of her testimony. Plaintiff received a statement or “bill” of her 1942 taxes and did not notice that the taxes for the 2 acres were not included. She' did not pay the 1942 taxes on the 12-acre tract until October 10, 1944, at which time they were delinquent.

For the unpaid taxes of 1942 on the 2-acre tract, that tract was sold to the State in a tax-sale proceeding begun by the auditor general, February 6, 1945, and by the State sold at scavenger sale to defendants Cecil for $880. The date of sale to Cecil does not appear but the deed was issued to defendants Cecil, March 31,1947, recorded April 21,1947.

About March 14, 1947, defendant Carl W. Cecil called at plaintiffs’ house, which had been built on the 2-acre tract, and then or later discussed the proposition of plaintiff paying Mr. Cecil $5,600, for a title to the land which he had purchased on scavenger sale.

Plaintiff further testified:

“We went to see Mr. Nunneley [a highly respected and competent attorney] and told him the situation. This thing had not progressed very far when we saw Mr. Nunneley. We did not know how we were going to pay. Mr. Nunneley advised us that we would have to pay whatever he asked. He says to handle the man with kid gloves and pay the man *90 what he asks you. He said it was too late to stop him. That was all he advised us; that we would have to pay the money in order to keep the house.”

Some days after consulting with attorney Nunneley, upon Mr. Cecil’s again coming to the residence •of plaintiffs, plaintiff agreed to and did pay Mr. ■Cecil $4,900, for a quitclaim deed, dated April 24, 1947.

Plaintiff admits receiving tax bills including the bill for 1942 for the 12 acres from the township treasurer. The bill contained in bold type a direction to make remittances payable to the township treasurer and gave his name and address. Plaintiff never directed the township treasurer to mail the bills directly to plaintiff, never noticed that the bill for 1942 •and later bills for subsequent years, did not contain •a description of the 2 acres, though “12.13 A.” was plainly typed on the face of the bill. Plaintiff never paid any of these bills until delinquent, including the 1942 bill, which also did not have the 2-acre description. Plaintiff claims she relied on an agreement with some unidentified clerk in the office of the county treasurer, to mail her a statement of future taxes, .after they had become delinquent on the 2 acres. We feel justified in disregarding plaintiff’s testimony •concerning any undertaking on the part of the county treasurer to mail her a notice.

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Related

Fisher v. Muller
218 N.W.2d 821 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1974)
Golden v. Auditor General
131 N.W.2d 55 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1964)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
62 N.W.2d 635, 339 Mich. 84, 1954 Mich. LEXIS 413, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brinker-v-auditor-general-mich-1954.