County of Stevens v. St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1887
• Parties: COUNTY OF STEVENS <I>vs.</I> ST. PAUL, MINNEAPOLIS & MANITOBA RAILWAY COMPANY.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 467

36 Minn. 467

COUNTY OF STEVENS vs. ST. PAUL, MINNEAPOLIS & MANITOBA RAILWAY COMPANY.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 2, 1887.

In proceedings in the district court for Stevens county to enforce payment of taxes on real estate in that county remaining delinquent

on the first Monday of January, 1886, the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company made answer as to certain parcels embraced in the delinquent list, alleging the matters recited in the opinion. At the hearing before Brown, J., the averments of the answer were admitted to be true, and judgment was ordered discharging the estate, title, and interest of the railway company, and of any trustee or mortgagee thereof, in each of the parcels of land, from the taxes set down against them in the delinquent list. At the request of the county attorney the case was then certified to this court.

C. L. Brown and H. H. Phelps, for plaintiff.

R. B. Galusha, S. L. Campbell, and Young & Lightner, for defendant.

DICKINSON, J.

There is here presented the question of the taxability of the estate or interest which the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company has in its lands after the same have been contracted to be sold, but before payment of the purchase price, or the performance of the contract conditions so as to entitle the purchaser to a conveyance. In the tax-list filed in the office of the clerk of the district court the lands in controversy were charged with taxes for the year 1884. The railroad company interposed an answer setting forth the facts, which, as is claimed, show that its estate in the lands is exempt from taxation. The facts as alleged in the answer were stipulated to be true, and were so found by the court. It will be sufficient for the understanding of the case to here allude to these facts, without restating them except in some particulars. The case thus presented comprises the facts of the incorporation of the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company by the territorial act of May 22, 1857, (Laws 1857, Ex. Sess. c. 1,) and the regranting to that corporation of the congressional grant of lands, made in that year to the territory to aid in the construction of that line of road, and the exemption from ordinary taxation of such granted lands "till sold and conveyed by said company," in consideration of the annual payment of a percentage of its gross earnings; the subsequent revesting in the state of the franchises, privileges, land, and property of that corporation, and that the same were regranted by the state to the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company by the act of March 10, 1862, (Sp. Laws 1862 c. 20;) the due organization as a corporation, in 1864, of the First Division of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, and that the same became the owner of the so-called "Main Line" of that road, and of all the lands granted to aid in the construction thereof, and of all the property, rights, franchises, immunities, and exemptions of the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company and the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company relating to said line, or to said granted lands; that such organization of the First Division Company, and its title to the road, lands, franchises, immunities, and exemptions were duly confirmed by a public law of the state, approved February 6, 1866, (Sp. Laws 1866, c. 1;) the additional congressional grant of March 3, 1865, (13 U. S. St. at Large, 526,) to aid in the construction of the lines of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, and the regranting of the same by the state to that corporation, by the act of March 2, 1865, (Sp. Laws 1865, c. 6;) the legislative enactment of March 4, 1865, (Sp. Laws 1865, c. 9,) entitled "An act in relation to the taxation of lands granted to the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company," providing, among other things, that, whenever any of these lands should be "contracted to be sold," they should be placed upon the tax-list for taxation as other real estate, but that, in enforcing the collection of the taxes thereon, the title or interest of the said company, or of any trustee or mortgagee thereof, should be in nowise impaired or affected thereby, but that the improvement thereon, and all the interest of the purchaser, should be sold in case of default in the payment of the tax; the due acceptance of that act of March 4, 1865, by both the St. Paul & Pacific and the First Division Companies, in the manner designated in the act; that thereupon the said law became, and has ever since been, obligatory upon the state and upon the said companies, and upon this respondent as their successor, and that the same, and the contract therein expressed, has never been altered, repealed, or rescinded; the due organization of this respondent as a corporation under the general law of the state, and especially under chapter 30 of the General Laws of 1876; that, by purchase at mortgage foreclosure sale in 1879, this respondent became and still is the owner in fee of all that part of the lines of the several roads above referred to, extending from St. Anthony to Breckenridge formerly known as the Main Line of the First Division of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, and of the lands granted by the United States by several acts of congress, and by the state regranted to said companies, or either of them, to aid in the construction of said main line, and of all the property, rights, franchises, immunities, exemptions, and privileges at any time possessed by said companies, or either of them, including the exemption from ordinary taxation, heretofore mentioned, pertaining to said line of railroad and said granted lands; which purchase by this respondent, and its right and title to all said line of railroad, lands, property, rights, franchises, immunities, exemptions, and privileges, were fully confirmed to this respondent by an act of the legislature of this state, approved March 7, 1881, entitled "An act confirming the organization and certain purchases of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company," (Sp. Laws 1881, c. 412,) etc.; that the lands here in question are a part of the lands granted by congress and by the state to aid in the construction of said main line, and ever since the year 1879 have been and now are owned in fee by this respondent, although the same have been by it contracted to be...