Blackwood v. Van Vleit

• Decision Date: 24 July 1874
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Robert Blackwood v. Peter Van Vleit

30 Mich. 118

Robert Blackwood v. Peter Van Vleit

Supreme Court of Michigan

July 24, 1874

Submitted on Briefs July 9, 1874.

Error to Lenawee Circuit.

Judgment reversed, with costs, for the error in refusing to receive evidence to show the invalidity of the tax of 1853 and a new trial ordered.

Henry M. Cheever, for plaintiff in error.

C. A & S. C. Stacy, for defendant in error.

OPINION

Cooley, J.:

This is an action of ejectment in which plaintiff claims under the patent title, and defendant relies upon a tax deed given in 1856, on a sale of the lands by the county treasurer for delinquent taxes of 1854. The questions on this record arise upon the effect of this deed, and upon the right to contest its validity after it has been on record for five years.

The statute which was in force when the sale was made (Comp. L., 1857, § 871), declared the deed "prima facie evidence of the regularity of all the proceedings from the valuation of the land by the assessors to the date of the deed inclusive, and of title in the purchaser." The statute was amended in 1858, but it is not necessary to refer particularly to the provisions of the act of that year, further than to say that they still made the deed prima facie evidence of title in the grantee. In 1869 an entire new act was passed on the subject of the assessment and collection of taxes, which also gave like effect to the deeds given under it. This act repealed all prior acts, with a proviso that "the repeal of acts mentioned in this act shall not affect any act done, sale made or right acquired or established previous to the time such repeal shall take effect:" Laws of 1869, p. 380; Comp. L., 1871, § 1133.

The plaintiff claimed in the court below that by the repeal of all previous acts the rule of evidence that made the deed prima facie evidence of title was annulled, and as the act of 1869 only applied to proceedings had under it, the defendant was not aided by it, but was remitted to the rule that would prevail in the absence of any such statute, and must support his deed by proof of the regularity of the proceedings which culminated in it. The circuit court ruled otherwise.

An examination of the statutes will show very clearly that the legislature has never designed to do away with the provisions which render these deeds prima facie evidence of title. In every instance where an amendment has been made, this feature has been retained. If the rule of evidence has been abolished as to any of these deeds, it must be conceded that it has been done by inadvertence, as the rule itself has been a part of our state policy for a quarter of a century. This fact will not save the rule if an unquestionable repeal appears, but it may go far to explain any ambiguous or doubtful language. And we think the language of the saving clause in the act of 1869 is to be construed in the light of this state policy. The repeal was not to affect sales previously made. Now it may well be said that the repeal of a rule of evidence applicable to such sales would not affect the sales themselves; but the statute evidently meant not the sales as such, which indeed could not be affected by subsequent legislation, but the rights derived from such sales; and these would be very materially affected if the deeds were to be deprived of their quality as evidence of title. And when we find this quality preserved up to the time the act of 1869 took effect, and that that act gave it to all subsequent tax conveyances, the conclusion is irresistible, that it was the intention of the legislature by the proviso to the repealing clause to preserve to the holders of previous conveyances the benefit of this rule of evidence.

We are referred to Hickox v. Tallman, 38 Barb. 608, as supporting the views of the plaintiff on this point, but an examination of the statute shows no such saving clause having reference to the sale then in controversy.

But we do not understand on what ground the court held that the plaintiff was not at liberty to dispute the validity of the tax deed. Counsel have argued the point as if it depended on the provision of the tax law of 1853 (Laws of 1853, p. 151, § 89), under which a tax deed, after it had been recorded five years, was to be "positive evidence" of a title in fee simple in the grantee. But this section was amended in 1855 by striking out the provision relied upon (Comp. L., 1857, § 871), and this being previous to the time when the sale was made, nothing could afterwards be claimed under the portion stricken out.

The plaintiff requested the court to charge the jury that if defendant went into possession of the land prior to the levy of the tax of 1854, and has since then continued in possession claiming title, he could acquire no rights under his deed for the taxes of 1854, and such deed is of no effect. This request was refused.

To preclude any person from making and relying upon a purchase of lands at tax sale, there must be something in the circumstances of the case which imposes upon him a duty to the state to pay the tax, or something which renders it inequitable, as between himself and the holder of the existing title, that he should make the purchase....