Cone v. Wood
| Decision Date | 09 May 1899 |
| Citation | 79 N.W. 86,108 Iowa 260 |
| Parties | ROBERT B. CONE, Appellant, v. JOHN WOOD |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Woodbury District Court.--GEORGE W. WAKEFIELD, Judge.
ACTION to quiet title. The facts, as presented by the record and in argument, are complicated. The primary inquiry is as to the validity of tax deeds. Prior to July, 1889, D. T. Hedges was the owner of lots 17, 18, and 19, in block 64, Pierce's addition to Sioux City, Iowa. The lots, as platted, lay in the southwest corner of the block, the west end of the lots abutting on Jones street, and lot 17, being the south one lay along Thirty-second street. The east end of the lots abutted on an alley running through the block. The lots were each fifty feet in width by one hundred and fifty feet in length, so that the three lots made a tract one hundred and fifty feet square. Hedges, in the sale of the tract, changed the frontage to Thirty-second street, so as to make the lots fifty feet east and west, by one hundred and fifty feet north and south, but no change was made in the plat or record. For the year 1899 the lots were assessed as platted, and numbered 17, 18, and 19. The lots as sold, and fronting on Thirty-second street, may be known as east, west, and middle lot, and as the middle lot has little, if any, bearing on the question we are to consider, it may be left without further notice, except incidentally.
It may be well to first state the facts as to ownership of the east and west lots, regardless of the tax interest involved. On the eighth day of July, 1889, Hedges sold the east lot to A M. Worden, who about the same time executed a mortgage thereon to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Trust Company to secure three thousand five hundred and forty dollars. The trust company foreclosed the mortgage afterwards, and the proceedings were such that the trust company received a sheriff's deed on execution sale for the east lot, July 7, 1891. The trust company sold the lot to the State Realty Company, January 2, 1893, and the trust company took back a mortgage for the purchase price, which interest it now holds. The middle lot was sold by Hedges, so that the title is not in him. Hedges also sold the west lot to one W. H. Cox for three thousand five hundred dollars, and took back a mortgage to secure two thousand dollars of the purchase price. This mortgage was sold to the defendant, Wood, and shows his interest in the lot.
We will now state the facts as to the tax title. As we have said, the lots were assessed by their platted numbers, 17, 18, and 19 and for the taxes of 1889, each lot being sold separately and certificates were issued therefor,--that for lot 17 being to Keegan, that for 18 being to one Tollefson, and that for 19 to the trust company; and by assignments the trust company became the owner of all the certificates by January 7, 1891: The trust company paid the taxes on all the lots for the year 1890; that is, on the lots as platted. For the years 1891 and 1892 it paid the taxes on what we have called the middle and east lots, as they fronted on Thirty-second street, but not on the west lot, owned by Cox. At the tax sale of 1892, the trust company bid in the west lot, owned by Cox, for the taxes of 1891. In August, 1893, the trust company assigned the tax-sale certificates it held under the sale of 1890 for the taxes of 1889 to one George L. Farrell, who received from the county treasurer separate deeds for the three lots, as assessed, 17, 18, and 19. Farrell was an officer in the trust company, and took the assignments of the certificates under an agreement that he would take the tax deeds, and then deed to the trust company, or to whom it might direct, the east third of the lots, being what we are calling the east lot, and retain for himself the middle and west lots; and, in pursuance thereof, he did deed, by direction of the trust company, the east lot to the realty company, it being an allied corporation to the trust company. The plaintiff was, from March, 1892, to May, 1896, the secretary of the trust company, and he brings this suit alleging ownership of the west one hundred feet of said lots, being the middle and west lot, under the other designation. Plaintiff came to his ownership of the lots by a conveyance, first, from Farrell of an undivided one-half of the lots; then Farrell and plaintiff joined in a deed to one Cooper of said lots; and, later, Cooper conveyed the lots to plaintiff. Plaintiff brings this action to quiet his title, making numerous parties defendant, but defendant Wood alone answers, denying the validity of the tax deeds, and offering to redeem. The district court held the deeds under which plaintiff claims void, and gave the defendant relief. The plaintiff appealed.
Affirmed.
Taylor & Burgess for appellant.
Marks & Mould for appellee.
I.
There is no doubt to our minds that plaintiff stands as to his rights under the tax deeds issued to Farrell, as would the trust company were it the plaintiff asking the same relief. By this we mean that there are no intervening equities in his behalf.
The question we now consider is, had the trust company the right to purchase at tax sale and take title to the west one-third of lots 17, 18, and 19, being what we have called the west lot? If it had not, it is because of its interest in the east one-third of these lots because of its mortgage thereon. Throughout the case it appears that the trust company, in what it did by way of obtaining the certificates of sale and assigning, acted alone with a view to protect its interest as mortgagee. Each lot being assessed as an entirety, with no prescribed legal method of making an apportionment of the taxes levied, so as to permit it to pay its proportion, on the basis of its interest, the company adopted the expedient of protecting its interest by securing the title through the sale for taxes; that is, it adopted the plan of securing the certificates, and then disposing of them, so as to take title to itself of the east lot, or another for it, and permit another to take the title to the balance. The sales of the lots being separate, they may be regarded as separate transactions in our considerations.
That the trust company had the right to pay the taxes on the property on which it held the mortgage, see Eck v Swennumson, 73 Iowa 423. The same case also announces the rule that a mortgagee cannot, by purchase at a tax sale, defeat a senior mortgage or acquire title against the mortgagor. The holdings are as to the specific land covered by the mortgage. The rule is that attempted purchases of that kind amount to a payment of the taxes, and not to a purchase. We notice these unquestioned rules, to have in mind how the relationship of mortgagee affected the trust company in what it did. Then, as to the part of the lots covered by its mortgage, it had the right to pay the taxes, and not to purchase it. But it could not do that. And here we may say that it made the attempt with the treasurer of the county and the other parties, and no apportionment could be made, because of the entire assessment of each lot. The assessment was prior to the taking of the mortgage, and the...
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