Christy's Adm'r v. City of St. Louis

• Citation: 20 Mo. 143
• Parties: CHRISTY'S ADMINISTRATOR, Appellant, v. THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Respondent.
• Decision Date: 31 October 1854
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

20 Mo. 143

CHRISTY'S ADMINISTRATOR, Appellant,

v.THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1854.

1. Walker v. The city of St. Louis, 15 Mo. Rep. 563, affirmed.

2. A municipal corporation has capacity to take personal if not real property, unless restrained by its charter. So, a party who has voluntarily paid to the city of St. Louis illegal taxes assessed under color of law, cannot maintain an action to recover them back, on the ground that the city has no capacity to take money which it has no right by charter to demand.

3. The same principle applies to an administrator who voluntarily pays illegal taxes upon the estate of his intestate, as to a person acting for himself. Neither can maintain an action to recover back.

Appeal from St. Louis Court of Common Pleas.

This was an action brought by the administrator of William Christy to recover back taxes paid by him and a preceding administrator to the city of St. Louis, beyond one-sixteenth of one per cent. per annum, upon real estate of their intestate, situate in what was known as the new limits, brought into the city by the charter of 1841. The facts are the same as in the case of Walker v. The City of St. Louis, 15 Mo. 563. The court below gave judgment for the defendant, from which the plaintiff appealed. The cause was submitted on written arguments by Reynolds for appellant, and Mr. Dayton and Mr. Gantt for respondent.

Mr. Reynolds, for appellant, argued the following points

1. The city of St. Louis has no capacity to receive or retain money for taxes not authorized by its charter. One paying, under a mistake of law, money to a natural person, may not recover it back, as there is in him the legal and natural capacity to give, and in the person paid, a legal and natural capacity to take. But a corporation has no natural capacity to take, and its legal capacity to take and hold is to be judged of by its charter. (Frst Inst. 263, a, 264, b; 1 Thomas' Coke, p. 193-4. As to the capacity to take real estate: Jackson v. Hartwell, 8 Johns. 422; First Parish in Sutton v. Cole, 3 Pick. 232; Weston v. Hunt, 2 Mass. 502; Lumbard v. Aldrich, 6 N. H. 269; Lessee of Knowles v. Beatty, 1 McLean, 41; Green v. Seymour, 3 Sandf. Ch. Rep. 285; Beatty v. Lessee of Knowles, 4 Peters, 152. As to personal estate: State v. Granville Alexandria Society, 11 Ohio, 1; Blair v. Perpetual Ins. Co., 10 Mo. 550; Bangor Boom Corporation v. Whiting, 29 Maine (16 Shepley), 123; Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. Canal, 5 Barb. Sup. C. Rep. 613; McCullough v. Moss, 5 Denio, 567.) But as the city has the physical and legal capacity to have the custody of money thus put into its coffers, the law will imply a promise and impose an obligation to refund. (Stone v. Berkshire Cong. Society, 14 Vermont, 86; Bates v. State Bank, 2 Ala. 451; Thayer v. Boston, 19 Pick. 511; Garrett v. Andover, 21 Vermont, 343; 5 Barb. Sup. C. Rep. 79.)

2. The money paid to the city by Christy's administrators was a trust fund, which may be followed into the hands of any one receiving it with a knowledge of its misapplication.

This whole transaction was a devastavit. If the present administrator cannot recover back the taxes paid by himself, he can at least those paid by the former administrator. (Story's Eq. Jurisp. § 1257 and authorities there cited; Clark v. Hougham, 2 B. & C. 149.)

III. The ordinance being void in part is void in toto, and plaintiff should recover back the whole tax. (5 Barbour's S. C. Rep. 613; Ashville v. Means, 7 Iredell, 406; Drew v. Davis 10 Verm. 506; Huse v. Merriam. 2 Greenleaf, 375; Elwell v. Shaw, 1 Id. 339; Stetson v. Kempton, 13 Mass. 272; Bangs v. Snow, 1 Mass. 181; Dillingham v. Snow, 5 Mass. 547; Libby v. Burnham, 15 Mass. 144.)

Dayton and Ganlt, for respondent, relied upon Walker v. The City, 15 Mo. 563, and cited the following additional authorities: Smith v. Redfield, 27 Maine, 145; Hemingway v. Machias, 33 Maine, 445.

SCOTT, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This action is founded on the state of facts that existed in the case of Walker v. The City of St. Louis, 15 Mo., 563, and grows out of the acts of the city, therein detailed.

The argument addressed to the...