Boyd v. Gardner

• Decision Date: 23 December 1907
• Citation: 106 S.W. 942
• Parties: BOYD et al. v. GARDNER.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

106 S.W. 942

BOYD et al. v. GARDNER.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

December 23, 1907.

Appeal from Woodruff Chancery Court; Edward D. Robertson, Chancellor.

Suit to quiet title by A. Boyd and others against T. L. Gardner. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiffs appeal. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

The complaint in this case alleges that the lands involved in this suit were purchased by appellee at a void tax sale. Appellants ask that the tax deed issued to defendant be canceled as a cloud upon their title. The facts sufficiently appear in the opinion.

J. F. Summers, for appellants. P. R. Andrews and H. M. Woods, for appellee.

HART, J. (after stating the facts as above).

This cause was tried upon an agreed statement of facts. It shows that there was filed with the clerk what purported to be a list of lands returned delinquent; but it nowhere appears in the record that such list was filed by the collector, or that it was authenticated by him as required by section 7083 of Kirby's Digest. The purported list was not even filed within the time prescribed by section 7083. In the case of Quertermous v. Walls, 70 Ark. 326, 67 S. W. 1014, the court said: "The delinquent list was filed by the deputy sheriff. The law does not authorize him to file such list. The filing of the delinquent list as the law prescribes is a prerequisite to a valid forfeiture to the state for the nonpayment of taxes. Without such list no notice could be published, and no sale could be had." In the present case there was no affidavit to the purported list of delinquent real estate. The record does not disclose by whom it was filed. We have no means of knowing whether or not it was the list prepared by the collector.

This renders the sale void; and, as the case must be reversed for that reason, it is unnecessary to decide the other objections urged by appellants.

Reversed and remanded, with directions to render a decree not inconsistent with this opinion.