Hixon v. Oneida County

52 N.W. 445, 82 Wis. 515, 1892 Wisc. LEXIS 167
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedJune 15, 1892
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 52 N.W. 445 (Hixon v. Oneida County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hixon v. Oneida County, 52 N.W. 445, 82 Wis. 515, 1892 Wisc. LEXIS 167 (Wis. 1892).

Opinion

PiNNey, J.

There are cross appeals in this cause, each party having appealed from the entire judgment. The defendants insist that the plaintiffs cannot maintain their appeal, for the reason that they waived the right to appeal by complying with the terms of the finding of the court to the effect that they were entitled to relief only upon paying into court the sum of $3,906.56, the balance of the taxes complained of, after deducting the items found by the court to be illegal, namely, the items for the towns of Ackley and Merrill, amounting on plaintiffs’ lands to $434.54, and by taking the benefit of the decision by entering and perfecting judgment accordingly.

1. The right of appeal is favored in law, and it will not be held to have been waived except upon clear and decisive grounds. Sloane v. Anderson, 57 Wis. 128, 129; Chapman v. Sutton, 68 Wis. 661. Payment of a judgment is not a waiver of the right to bring an appeal or writ of error to reverse it. This case is clearly distinguishable from Webster-Glover L. & M. Co. v. St. Croix Co. 71 Wis. 317, where the judgment contained provisions in favor of the party who appealed as well as provisions against him, and he, after the entry of judgment, accepted the money, adjudged to him and then appealed from the provisions of the judgment against him. The court held that by accepting the fruits of the judgment he waived his right of appeal. The plaintiff could not appeal from the finding or decision. Webster-Glover L. & M. Co. v. St. Croix Co. 63 Wis. 647; Bourgeois v. Schrage, 69 Wis. 316. Here the court had decided that the plaintiffs were entitled to a less favorable judgment than they had asked, and to that only upon condition of paying into court, “ for the use and benefit of the parties entitled thereto,” the sum mentioned; and it is recited in the [530]*530judgment that the payment into court of the sum required was under protest. The plaintiffs had a right to appeal from a judgment in their favor, and the payment of this money into court was with the view of perfecting the less favorable judgment awarded to them. The fact that they perfected such judgment, and paid money into court to that end, ought not to be construed as a waiver of their right to appeal from it and obtain a more favorable one, and to reclaim the money so paid in, or of the party who might have received it. Money paid under a judgment afterwards reversed may be recovered back. If, after the judgment had been perfected, the plaintiffs had accepted the benefit of any provision of it, they would properly be held to have waived their right of appeal, as in Webster-Glover L. & M. Co. v. St. Croix Co. 71 Wis. 317.

2. It is also insisted that the defendants have waived and eannot maintain their appeal, by reason of having withdrawn the money thus paid in; but there is nothing in the record to sustain the contention. The bill of exceptions states that the money was paid to the clerk of the court “ and still remains in court.” There is nothing krshow that it has been withdrawn. Both appeals are therefore properly before the court for determination.

3. The action was commenced before the sale of the lands . in question, and, the injunction awarded having been dissolved, they were again advertised for sale and sold; and it is said that the certificates of sale have been assigned by the county to one Wilcox, and that he is a necessary party to a decree annulling them; but Wilcox was a purchaser pendente lite, and took only such rights as the county had, and he is in no better position. These certificates are not negotiable in the sense that the assignee of them acquires any better right than the purchaser, and a judgment annulling the tax will necessarily destroy the tax certificates and defeat any tax deed on them. T. B. Scott Lumbar Co. v. Oneida, Co. 72 Wis. 158.

[531]*5314. The counsel for plaintiffs, in an able and elaborate brief, has assailed the doctrine laid down by this court at an early day, that a court of equity will not interfere to declare a tax invalid and restrain its collection, unless the. objections to the proceedings are snob, as go to the very groundwork of the tax and necessarily affect materially its principle and show that it must necessarily be unjust- and unequal; that it is not enough to show that the tax proceedings are irregular or void, but it must also appear-that they are inequitable and that it will be against conscience to let them go on; that courts of equity do not sit to reverse or correct errors and mistakes of law, and that, to be entitled to their assistance, the party applying must show that he is in danger of unjustly losing some substantial right, and that he is in no fault. Mills v. Gleason, 11 Wis. 497; Warden v. Fond du Lac Co. 14 Wis. 618, 621; Miltimore v. Rock Co. 15 Wis. 9; Dean v. Gleason, 16 Wis. 1; Bond v. Kenosha, 17 Wis. 284; Mills v. Johnson, 17 Wis. 598; Crane v. Janesville, 20 Wis. 305; Ballard v. Appleton, 26 Wis. 67; Whittaker v. Janesville, 33 Wis. 76; Mills v. Charleton, 29 Wis. 400,— and many other cases in this court and in other courts of the highest respectability,— are to the same effect. It is true that these cases were understood to have been discredited and departed from to some extent by the case of Marsh v. Clark Co. 42 Wis. 502, and the succeeding cases of Philleo v. Hiles, 42 Wis. 527; Tierney v. Union L. Co. 47 Wis. 248; Schettler v. Ft. Howard, 43 Wis. 48; Goff v. Outagamie Co. 43 Wis. 55; and Plumer v. Marathon Co. 46 Wis. 163; and it is upon the strength of these cases that the plaintiffs’ counsel in the main founds his argument upon their appeal; but in very many subsequent cases the authority of the former cases has been fully restored, and frequently restated and vindicated with increased vigor and clearness. The whole subject was considered, and elaborately and forcibly discussed. [532]*532by Mr. Justice Taylor, in Fifield v. Marinette Co. 62 Wis. 532, and the views there expressed have been adhered to and followed in many cases. We see no reason for doubting or departing from the doctrine as originally established in this state, and we cannot agree with counsel for appellants that the principles thus laid down are at all obscure or uncertain, o.r that there is any reason for misapprehension of the rule for granting relief in such cases, since the cases of Fifield v. Marinette Co. 62 Wis. 532; Wis. Cent. R. Co. v. Lincoln Co. 67 Wis. 478, 481; Canfield v. Bayfield Co. 74 Wis. 60, 64; Boorman v. Juneau Co. 76 Wis. 550; Green Bay & M. Canal Co. v. Outagamie Co. 76 Wis. 588; Kaehler v. Dobberpuhl, 56 Wis. 480; Wis. Cent. R. Co. v. Ashland Co. 81 Wis. 1,— were decided.

5. The objections taken to the assessment are various, but, within the authorities referred to, we must hold they afford no ground for relief. The claim that the proof shows that there was any intentional omission of property from the assessment is negatived by the sixth and seventh findings of the court, which we think are in accordance with the evidence, and so, also, as to the claim that there was an intentional undervaluation of real and personal property in the town of Eagle River. The evidence on the subject of undervaluation of real estate is confined wholly to about eighteen lots in the village of Eagle River, and consists of the testimony of two business men of that place.

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Bluebook (online)
52 N.W. 445, 82 Wis. 515, 1892 Wisc. LEXIS 167, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hixon-v-oneida-county-wis-1892.