Wilson v. Levy

1929 OK 457, 282 P. 679, 140 Okla. 74, 1929 Okla. LEXIS 323
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 22, 1929
Docket19550
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 1929 OK 457 (Wilson v. Levy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilson v. Levy, 1929 OK 457, 282 P. 679, 140 Okla. 74, 1929 Okla. LEXIS 323 (Okla. 1929).

Opinion

LEACH, C.

This action was commenced in the district court of Rogers county on February 24, 1926, by E. G. Wilson, against Leon Levy, J. I. Henshaw, and W. T. Jackson, defendants.

The plaintiff alleged in his petition that he was the owner in fee simple of a tract of land, 35 acres, describing it, located in said county; that he acquired his title thereto in April, 1918; that the defendants claimed title to the land by virtue of a purported resale tax deed dated December 6, 1921, and recorded in the same year, and alleged that the tax deed was void for various reasons, some of which are argued and pre *75 sented 'by plaintiff under his petition in error and are later .discussed herein; further pleaded that, at the time of the alleged sale and ever since, he had been in possession of the real estate, and that defendants were barred and estopped from claiming or asserting any right under the tax deed, and prayed that it be canceled and the defendants enjoined from asserting any right or title to the land.

No service of summons was had on the defendant Levy, and no appearance was made in the cause by him. The defendant Henshaw filed his answer generally denying the allegations of plaintiff’s petition, and admitted the execution of the tax deed referred to and set out in plaintiff’s petition; alleged that he acquired title to the described land under deed dated October 26, 1925, from the grantee named in the resale tax deed: that he and 'his grantor had been in, possession of the property since January, 1922; that he had paid delinquent taxes thereon in the sum of $200, and further alleged that the resale deed was valid; and pleaded as a bar to plaintiff’s right of recovery the statute of limitations.

The plaintiff filed a reply in the nature of a general denial.

On the issues so made the action was tried to the court, who held that the plaintiff had wholly failed to sustain his allegations, and was not entitled to any relief, and rendered judgment for the defendant Henshaw, from which judgment the plaintiff brings this appeal and presents the alleged error set forth in his petition in error under the following propositions:

“The deed involved in this action is void on its face for the following reasons: That the sale of the land was not made on ifae fourth Monday of November, 1921, as the statute then in force required, and it does not appear from the deed that any adjournment of the tax sale was made, and the resale statute then in force did not provide for an adjournment.”

In support of the first proposition, the plaintiff cites Sires v. Parriott, 106 Okla. 244, 233 Pac. 748; Sharum v. Foster, 109 Okla. 218, 235 Pac. 489, Ledegar v. Bockoven, Co. Treas., 77 Okla. 58, 185 Pac. 1097; Smith v. Bostaph, 103 Okla. 258, 229 Pac. 1039, and other cases of similar import from this court, all of which hold,' in substance, that a resale tax deed must set forth the acts and proceedings in connection with the tax sale and resale so that the court may determine that all legal requirements had been satisfied in order to constitute a valid tax deed upon its face.

The decisions cited and relied upon in support of the proposition were rendered prior to the opinion in the case of Treese v. Ferguson, 120 Okla. 235, 251 Pac. 91, which case specifically overruled former cases, similar to those above referred to, which held that a resale tax deed, in order to be valid on its face, must contain in detail the various steps leading up to and taken at the sale.

On the came of Ledegar v. Bockoven, supra, which involved a statute very similar to the one in force at the time of the resale here involved, it was held that if a tax resale was commenced at the time required by law, then it might be continued from day to day until the sale was completed.

In the Sires v. Parriott Case, supra, the deed there involved showed the land was sold on the 29th, while the date fixed by the law for the beginning of the sale was November 24th, and the deed did not show that the sale was begun on the 24th, or any adjournment of the sale, and such defect with others was held sufficient to avoid the deed.

Likewise, in the case of Gulager v. Coon, 93 Okla. 62, 218 Pac. 701, the tax deed there involved was held invalid because it failed to show all the steps taken by the tax authorities leading up to the sale, and one of such defects in the deed was that it failed to show the sale was commenced on the day fixed by statute and continued from day to day. It will be observed that in the last two cases above referred to, and in Sharum v. Poster, supra, the deed did not show the sale to have been commenced on the date fixed by statute.

In the instant case, the deed does show that the sale was commenced on the 28th of November, as provided by the statute, and while it does not specifically recite that the sale was continued from the 28th to the 29th, yet we think it sufficient to raise the presumption that a continuance of the sale was had from the 28th to the 29th, on which latter day the particular tract here involved was sold.' The resale deed covers 30 different tracts or parcels of land which show to have been sold at the resale on the 28th, 29th, and 30th days of November. Under the holding in Treese v. Ferguson, supra, the presumption would be in favor of the validity of the deed and regularity of the sale, rather than a strict construction against the validity as was the rute under the earlier eases.

At the time of the sale and issuance of the resale deed here involved, there was no *76 prescribed form of resale deed, and it was held in Cochran v. Sullivan, 94 Okla. 23, 220 Pac. 870, that resale tax deed should so far as possible conform to the form prescribed by section 7418, Rev. Laws 1910 (9752, C. O. S. 1921), which form of deed did not recite the hour of sale, and therefore the deed here in question was not required to show the hour of the sale in order to be valid, as is suggested by plaintiff.

It was not until the 1923 amendment to the resale law that the form prescribed by the State Examiner and Inspector required the hour of sale to be shown in the .deed. The resale deed here involved does not appear to be void on its face on the ground presented under plaintiff’s first proposition.

It is next contended that the deed is void because it shows the resale was held within less than two years of the last and previous sale of the property for delinquent taxes. This contention is without merit. The deed shows the particular tract of land in question to have been sold for delinquent taxes in the years 1914, 1918, and 1920, and the amount for which it was sold in each year. The sales for delinquent taxes in the years 1914 and 1918 were sufficient to justify and sustain the resale, and the fact that a sale had been had of the property in 1920 would not affect the resale in 1921. It is said in the syllabus of Wolfe v. Brooke, 133 Okla. 128, 271 Pac. 669:

“A resale tax deed based upon delinquent taxes for two separate years, the land not being taxable for one year, but taxable for the other, is not void upon its face.”

It is next contended that the deed in question is void because it shows that the property involved was listed in three separate tracts and does not show each tract to have been sold separately.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1929 OK 457, 282 P. 679, 140 Okla. 74, 1929 Okla. LEXIS 323, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-levy-okla-1929.