Crawford Cnty. v. Laub

• Decision Date: 26 January 1900
• Citation: 81 N.W. 590,110 Iowa 355
• Parties: CRAWFORD COUNTY v. LAUB.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

110 Iowa 355

81 N.W. 590

CRAWFORD COUNTY

v.LAUB.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 26, 1900.

Appeal from district court, Crawford county; S. M. Elwood, Judge.

John Coulter operated a saloon, in which intoxicating liquors were sold, on lot 1, in block 4, in the town of West End, from July 19, 1894, to October 1st of the same year, in pursuance of the provisions of the mulct law. This lot was duly assessed, and the tax levied. When he ceased business, there was a balance of $119.60 due from Coulter, which was unpaid, and constituted a lien on the lot then owned by Ellen Waldron Crow. She sold it to the defendant in 1896. The premises were offered for sale by the treasurer in June, 1895, and repeatedly thereafter, without receiving bids. The plaintiff averred that all legal remedies for the collection of the tax had proven unavailing, and prayed that a decree be entered establishing the same, with penalties, as a lien on the lot, and that special execution issue for its sale. The court sustained the defendant's demurrer that the facts stated did not entitle the plaintiff to any relief, and, as the county elected to stand on the ruling, the petition was dismissed. The plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.P. E. C. Lally, for appellant.

Shaw, Kuehnle & Beard, for appellee.

LADD, J.

That the tax levied against a lot on which a liquor saloon is operated under the mulct law is a debt for which the proprietor and his sureties are personally liable in a suit on his bond was held in Marshall Co. v. Knoll, 102 Iowa, 573, 69 N. W. 1146, and 71 N. W. 571. No other remedy on the bond existed, and the right to maintain an action thereon was necessarily implied. See McInerny v. Reed, 23 Iowa, 412;Findley v. Taylor, 97 Iowa, 420, 66 N. W. 74;State v. Tittman (Mo.) 15 S. W. 936. Here the proprietor is not a party, and the only remedy sought is against the real estate. Section 1 of chapter 62 of the Acts of the 25th General Assembly provided for the assessment against the person engaged in the liquor traffic, and also “upon any real property and the owner thereof, within or whereon intoxicating liquors are sold, or kept with intent to sell in this state, a tax of six hundred dollars per annum. All such taxes shall be a perpetual lien upon all property, both personal and real, used in or connected with the business.” Section 12 requires the county treasurer on the first Mondays in June and December to offer “at public sale at his office, all lands, town lots or other real property on which taxes for the sale of intoxicating liquors have become a lien.” By section 13, “all the provisions of law now or hereafter in force for the assessment, levy and collection of taxes shall apply to and govern the taxes provided for by this act, except as herein otherwise provided.” It is sufficient here to say that, under the general law relating to the collection of taxes, upon sale of land a certificate of sale is executed by the treasurer to the purchaser, and, unless redemption is made in the meantime, on proper notice a deed will be issued in three years. The remedy is thus provided in detail, and we think it is exclusive. This court has never determined whether ordinary taxes may be collected in an action at law. On that proposition but two of the four judges concurred in City of Burlington v. Burlington & M. R. Co., 41 Iowa, 139, and City of Dubuque v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 39 Iowa, 56. The point was not involved in Shaw v. Orr, 30 Iowa, 360, nor decided in Findley v. Taylor, 97 Iowa, 420, 66 N. W. 74. Nor may we now determine that question, though it can be said the decided weight of authority is that the particular remedy provided by statute is exclusive. Water-Supply Co. v. Bell (Colo. Sup.) 36 Pac. 1102;City of Nebraska City v. Nebraska City Hydraulic Gaslight & Coke Co. (Neb.) 2 N. W. 872;City of Carondelet v. Picot, 38 Mo. 125;Board of Com'rs of Stafford Co. v. First Nat. Bank of Stafford (Kan. Sup.) 30 Pac. 22;Baldwin v. Hewett (Ky.) 11 S. W. 803;Pierce Co. v. Merrill (Wash.) 52 Pac. 854. See authorities collected in 25 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 312 et seq.; Cooley, Tax'n (2d Ed.) 16. See, also, Black, Tax Titles, § 45; Blackw. Tax Titles, § 335. The same remedy is provided for enforcing the collection of the mulct tax against land as the ordinary tax. The different steps to be taken are as clearly defined by the revenue law as the mode under which a judgment lien may be enforced and collected is pointed out by statute. In providing a specific remedy for the enforcement of a tax lien, applicable to no other, the legislative intent that another may not be resorted to is manifest. See Suth. St. Const. § 399; Hodges v. Tama Co., 91 Iowa, 578, 60 N. W. 185;Luce...