Hereford v. O'Connor

52 P. 471, 5 Ariz. 258, 1898 Ariz. LEXIS 143
CourtArizona Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 23, 1898
DocketCivil No. 606
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 52 P. 471 (Hereford v. O'Connor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Arizona Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hereford v. O'Connor, 52 P. 471, 5 Ariz. 258, 1898 Ariz. LEXIS 143 (Ark. 1898).

Opinion

STREET, C. J.

1. 'This was an action brought by Frank H. Hereford, appellant herein, and plaintiff in the district court, against E. A. O’Connor, appellee, to quiet title to an undivided one-half interest in the Empire Mine, located in Patagonia Mining District, Pima County, Arizona. The Empire Mine is a patented mine, letters patent having been issued therefor, bearing date February 17, 1877, and has been assessed for taxes since that date. Taxes, without dispute, had been paid thereon for the years 1883, 1885, 1887, 1888, 1889, and 1890, as well as for other years, while the taxes for some other years had been allowed to go delinquent, and at times unpaid. Plaintiff claimed through and by virtue of a tax-deed from the county treasurer and ex officio- tax-collector of Pima County, dated the ninth day of October, 1896, for the consideration of $19.78, upon a sale-of an undivided one-half interest in said mine, on the twelfth day of April, 1894, for taxes assessed for the year 1893. The findings of fact and conclusions of law made by the trial court are as follows:—

“First. That plaintiff bases his cause of action on the tax-deed introduced in evidence, said deed having been issued by the tax-collector of Pima County, Arizona, to plaintiff, Frank H. Hereford, on the ninth day of October, 1896, for the property described in the complaint. Second. That notice of intention to apply for a deed, required to be given under section 20 of Act No. 84 of Session Laws of Arizona for 1893, introduced in evidence by plaintiff, did not and does not show service of said notice as required by said section, in that no [263]*263affidavit of service of said notice was made and filed with tbe tax-collector before the issuance of the deed aforesaid by the tax-collector to plaintiff as required by law.

“As a conclusion of law from the foregoing facts the court finds that the deed issued by the tax-collector to plaintiff for the property described in the complaint was issued without authority of law, and is void. ’ ’

2. Session Laws 1893 (Act No. 84, secs. 21, 22) provide:—

‘ ‘ Sec. 21. The matters recited in the certificate of sale must be recited in the deed, and such deed, duly acknowledged or proved, is conclusive evidence that: (1) The property was assessed as required by law. (2) The property was equalized as required by law. (3) The taxes were levied in accordance with law. (4) At a proper time and place the property was sold as prescribed by law, and by the proper officer. (5) The person who executed the deed was the proper officer.

“See. 22. Such deed, duly acknowledged or proved, is (except against actual fraud) prima, facie evidence of all other facts therein stated, and of the regularity of all other proceedings from the assessment by the assessor up to the execution of the deed.”

Plaintiff, under this law, had purchased the undivided one-half interest in the Empire Mine, for which he asked the title to be quieted, and the only evidence which he introduced of his title to such mine was said tax-deed. Among the other recitations in the deed was the following: “'Whereas, the said Frank H. Hereford, the owner and holder of said certificate of sale, has filed with said party of the first part, as treasurer and ex officio- tax-collector, as aforesaid, an affidavit showing that the notice was served upon the said Samuel Katzenstein (the person owing said taxes) on the twenty-ninth day of May, 1896, as by law in such cases required, that the said owner and holder of said certificate of sale would apply for a deed to the property so sold and purchased as aforesaid; and . . . ”—which was the only evidence the plaintiff introduced to show that the notice had been served, and the affidavit filed with the tax-collector, before the issuing of the deed. Section 20 of said act provides that, if the property is not redeemed from sale, the purchaser shall have a deed reciting substantially the matters contained in the certificate; and that the purchaser, thirty days before he applies for a deed, [264]*264shall serve -upon the owner or person occupying the property “a written notice, stating that said property, or a portion thereof, has been sold for delinquent taxes, giving the date of sale, the amount of property sold, the amount for which it is sold, the amount then due and the time when the right of redemption will expire and when the purchaser will apply for a deed.” And it further provides: “And no deed of the property sold at a delinquent tax sale shall be issued by the tax-collector, or any other officer, to the purchaser of such property, until after such purchaser shall have filed with such tax-collector or other. officer, an affidavit showing that the notice hereinbefore required to be given has been given as herein required, which said affidavit shall be filed and preserved by the tax-collector as other files, papers, and records kept by him in his office.” It will be observed that the matters of which the deed is conclusive evidence pertain to official acts of the assessor, treasurer, and tax-collector, while other matters recited in the deed, and which may be non-official, are shown but prima facie by the deed. Such matters may be rebutted, and shown not to exist, or to exist differently from the recital. The act of giving notice is non-official. It is the act of the purchaser who may be interested in giving an indifferent or ineffective notice, and making the affidavit thereof in a way to mislead. The effect of these recitals is statutory, and derived from the statute. Without the aid of statute, a tax-deed would be but a link in the title, and would have to depend upon evidence of anterior proceedings. With those statutory provisions, evidence of anterior proceedings is dispensed with, and the deed is proof conclusive of such anterior proceedings as the statute makes conclusive, and prima facie of all other facts in the deed stated. Blackwell on Tax Titles, sec. 845, says: “This deed, according to the principles of common law, is simply a link in the chain of the grantee’s title. It does not, ipso facto, transfer the title of the owner as in grants from the government, or in deeds between man and man. The operative character of it depends upon the regularity of the anterior proceedings. The deed is not the title itself, nor even evidence of it. Its recitals bind no one. It creates no estoppel upon the former owner. No presumption arises, upon the mere production of the deed, that the facts upon which it is based had any existence.” [265]*265Cooley on Taxation (p. 536), in speaking of the conditions imposed upon the purchaser, says: “Whatever the statute may make provision for, subsequent to the sale, in order to the protection of the interest of parties having the right to redeem, must be strictly performed. The reasons which require this are the same that render imperative a strict compliance with all those provisions which are to be observed in the interest of the taxpayer before the sale is made.” Black on Tax Titles (par. 345), under the head of “Proof of Notice,” says: “The burden rests upon a party asserting a title in fee by virtue of the tax certificate to prove that the notice of the time for redemption has been duly served.” And in the same section, in regard to the presumptions of the facts stated in the tax-deed, he further says: “If the statute makes the tax-deed prima facie

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Bluebook (online)
52 P. 471, 5 Ariz. 258, 1898 Ariz. LEXIS 143, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hereford-v-oconnor-ariz-1898.