Lessee of Sheldon v. Coates

10 Ohio St. 278
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 15, 1840
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 10 Ohio St. 278 (Lessee of Sheldon v. Coates) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lessee of Sheldon v. Coates, 10 Ohio St. 278 (Ohio 1840).

Opinion

Wood, J.

The land in controversy is a part of lot No. 138, township No. 6, in the 11th range, in the Connecticut Western Reserve. On the trial there was no contest as to the right of the plaintiff to recover, unless the proceedings under a certain sale for taxes, in 1806, were valid; but if such tax sale was sustainable, the title of the defendant was unquestioned. To support this sale several documents were offered in evidence by the defendant’s counsel, which wore objected to by the counsel for the plaintiff, but admitted by the court to go to the jury, and the reasons stated in the motion for a new trial, is the supposed error of the court in the admission of these papers. We shall notice only those reasons on which counsel appearto us mainly to rely, the others being too apparently untenable to require of us any especial consideration.

The defendant derived title, first, under a deed from Reuben S. Clark, collector of taxes for the sixth non-resident collection dis- , trict, dated November 27, 1809, and then through several intermediate conveyances, down to himself. Objection was *taken [279 to the introduction of this deed, because, in its recital, it set forth a certificate of sale for taxes, dated on May 22, 1806, signed by James Hillman, as collector of taxes for the sixth collection district of the State of Ohio for the'year 1805.

By the law of 1805, in force when the tax accrued for which this sale was made, Hillman was sheriff of Trumbull county, and, as such, collector of taxes ex officio. By the act of January 27, 1806, which took effect from its passage, the state was divided into six collection districts'for the collection of taxes from nonresident proprietors of lands, and Hillman was appointed collector of the sixth district, in which the land in controversy was eituated. Section 24 of this statute (1 Chase’s L. 539) provides, “that the collectors of the several counties or townships, and collection districts, shall, respectively, make deeds to the purchaser or purchasers, his or their assigns, for all lands that have heretofore been sold for taxes,” etc. Section 35 repeals the former acts, and provides that “ all taxes,” etc., “ due and owing under the provisions of either of the above-recited acts, shall be collected and paid over [280]*280to the proper officer therein authorized to. receive the same.” As the sheriff of Trumbull county was de facto collector of the tax due in 1805, it is urged by counsel that under this last provision! when he sold the land in 1806, he was acting as the sheriff of Trumbull county, and should have signed the certificate of sale as sheriff, and not as collector of the sixth collection district, and that consequently the deed founded on such evidence of sale and executed by Clark in 1809, Clark being a subsequent district collector, is void. We have not, however, come to the same conclusion. It is a general rule in sales by public officers, that where there is a sufficient power to warrant a sale, a slight variance or omission will not be held to be material. 5 Cowon, 350. But this, it is said, is a sale for taxes, where principles stricti juris are to be applied. To this argument it may also be answered, that no substantial variance from the provisions of the statute, so far as the 280] signature of Hillman to the certificate of sale is ^concerned, is by us perceivod. In May, 1806, when the sale was made, Trumbull county formed the sixth collection district, and, Hillman, being sheriff of the county, was, as such, collector of that district for the tax of 1805, at the time when he signed the, certificate. Hillman, being by the act made collector by virtue of his office of sheriff, it seems to us there can be no objection to the certificate, whether signed by him in the one or the other capacity. Pro haa vice, sheriff and collector are synonymous terms.

Another ground urged for a now trial is, that the court overruled the plaintiff’s objections to the defendant’s title, because Hillman had not duly qualified as collector, by giving bond as the law required. The act of February 18, 1804, provides that the sheriff of each county, before he received his duplicate, should give bonds, etc., conditioned for the due and faithful paying and accounting for all taxes, etc., and if he neglected to give such bond before the first Monday of August, a collector of taxes should be appointed by the county commissioners; and the statute also required the clerk of the court of common pleas to withhold the duplicate until the bond was given, etc. 1 Chase’s L. 415. The evidence was, that the bond was not executed until the 10th of September, and that Hillman did not receive the duplicate until September 20, 1805. But it was holden by this" court, in 5 Ohio, 136, that a constable’s bond, executed after the time limited by the statute, was nevertheless valid and that its execution was not a [281]*281condition precedent to the right to enter upon the duties of his office. In the case of the State of Ohio v. Findley and others,

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Bluebook (online)
10 Ohio St. 278, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lessee-of-sheldon-v-coates-ohio-1840.