Coy v. Title Guarantee & Trust Co.

• Decision Date: 01 February 1915
• Docket Number: 2455.
• Citation: 220 F. 90
• Parties: COY v. TITLE GUARANTEE & TRUST CO. et al. (MULTNOMAH COUNTY, OR., et al., Interveners).
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

220 F. 90

COY v. TITLE GUARANTEE & TRUST CO. et al. (MULTNOMAH COUNTY, OR., et al., Interveners).

No. 2455.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

February 1, 1915

Rehearing Denied March 8, 1915.

William C. Bristol, of Portland, Or., for appellant.

Walter H. Evans, Dist. Atty. for Fourth Judicial District of Oregon Robert F. Maguire, Deputy Dist. Atty., and Emmons & Webster all of Portland, Or., for appellees.

Before GILBERT, ROSS, and MORROW, Circuit Judges.

ROSS Circuit Judge.

This suit was originally brought in the Circuit Court for the District of Oregon, in which that court on the 6th day of November, 1907, appointed a receiver of all of the property of the Title Guarantee & Trust Company, who duly qualified and took possession of its property as the officer of the court, and which receivership, it appears, has continued ever since-- having passed to the District Court under the new Judicial Code.

The present appeal grows out of certain intervention proceedings which took place in the court below for the recovery of certain state, county, city, and school taxes alleged to have been levied upon certain personal property of the insolvent corporation in the possession of the receiver, for the years 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911, with certain penalties and interest added thereto for delinquency-- one of the petitions in intervention being filed by the county of Multnomah, of the state of Oregon, in which the taxes alleged to have been levied and due are alleged to be 'a first and prior lien and claim' upon all of the property in the hands of the receiver; and in the other petition, which was filed on behalf of the state of Oregon, the county of Multnomah, and the city of Portland thereof, it was alleged that the corporation mentioned 'is indebted' to those interveners on account of taxes upon personal property of the insolvent corporation, with penalties and interest, in certain specified amounts for the years 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911. Both petitions prayed an order of the court directing the receiver to pay the amounts so claimed. The receiver contested the petitions in the court below, in which the decision was against him, and from the final order of the court directing the payments he brings the present appeal.

The answers of the receiver to the petitions in intervention denied that either intervener ever had any lien or preferred claim of any nature upon any of the property of the Title Guarantee & Trust Company in the hands of the receiver, or that any 'indebtedness' existed by reason of the alleged assessments, and set up in defense, among other things That 'as matter of law, on and after the 6th day of November, 1907, no property or funds or assets of the Title Guarantee & Trust Company were assessed as such to the Title Guarantee & Trust Company; that the same were on that date, and ever since have been, and are now, in custodia legis; and that the Title Guarantee & Trust Company, under a bill of complaint in this court, was then in liquidation and being wound up.'

The appellant's counsel thus states 'the single important and pertinent question' presented by the appeal:

'whether under the laws of the state of Oregon, prior to the amendment of 1913, a personal property tax assessment in the name of a defunct corporation, through merely placing its name upon the tax roll, after it had ceased business, and after all of its property of every kind had been surrendered to its creditors, and while said property was being administered and distributed through and by a court and receiver, can be made and enforced, with penalties and interest, after several years' delay, by an intervention in the receivership cause, prosecuted by the authorities as a preferred lien or claim, or by indebitatus assumpsit, when the laws of the state at the time of intervention do not provide for such cases, and the Supreme Court of the state has expressly denied such a tax to be either a lien or a debt, and declared equity courts without power to render judgment therefor.'

We regard it as wholly unimportant that under the laws of Oregon taxes levied upon personal property do not constitute a lien thereon, nor a 'debt.' The statutes of that state do declare the personal property of every individual liable to taxation, and that like property of every private...