Evans v. City of Jackson

• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Citation: Evans v. City of Jackson, 30 So.2d 315, 202 Miss. 9 (Miss. 1947)
• Decision Date: 05 May 1947
• Docket Number: 36454.
• Parties: EVANS v. CITY OF JACKSON.

30 So.2d 315

202 Miss. 9

EVANS v. CITY OF JACKSON.

No. 36454.

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 5, 1947

Howie, Howie & McGowan, of Jackson, for appellant.

E. W. Stennett, of Jackson, for appellee.

L. A. SMITH, SR., Justice.

In common parlance, appellant prayed, and was denied cancellation of certain alleged clouds upon his title to a tract of land bought by him from the City of Jackson, as hereinafter detailed. The City of Jackson was the successful defendant, and is appellee here. It was charged by the original bill with casting such clouds, doubts and suspicions on the title obtained from it by appellant. The solution of the problem requires the construction of certain statutes.

Section 3429, Code of 1906, and Section 2590, Code of 1930, both read as follows: 'What to be done with land after time for redemption has expired.--After the time for redemption has expired, the mayor and board of aldermen may take possession of and lease or sell any lands which it has acquired at tax-sale to any person, in any manner that may be prescribed by ordinance.' Chapter 328, Laws 1934, amended the foregoing statute as follows: 'After the time for redemption has expired, the municipality, acting through its governing authorities, may take possession of and lease or sell any lands which it has acquired at tax sale to any person, in any manner that may be prescribed by ordinance which said ordinance may be a special ordinance covering each particular tract of land so leased or sold; * * *'.

Chapter 280 of the Laws of 1936, which is the present Section 3756, Code 1942, materially changed the provisions of the foregoing enactments. The phrase 'order or resolution' was substituted for the word 'ordinance'. The statute now reads as follows: 'After the time to redeem from the municipal tax sale has expired, or after the municipality has purchased lands as provided in this Act, said municipality acting through its governing authorities shall take possession of said lands and shall endeavor to sell same as expeditiously as good business may require. Provided however, it may lease said lands until a sale thereof can be made. Said municipal governing authorities may lease or sell any of said lands to any person in any manner that may be prescribed by an order or resolution, which said order or resolution shall be entered on the minutes covering each particular tract of land so leased or sold, * * *'. It was the intention of the Legislature to vest in municipal authorities in each specific case of lease or sale the right to fix the price, terms and conditions of each sale or lease. (All italics, ante, are ours.)

The briefs of both appellant and appellee agree that a former administration and the present administration as 'governing authorities' of the City of Jackson disagree in their interpretation of the foregoing statutes, and the application, if any, to the situation at issue of Section 3806, Code 1942. It appears that 'many thousands of lots and parcels of land within the City of Jackson sold for taxes and literally thousands of these sales matured in the City,' according to the brief of appellant, and are in the same status as the land in litigation. In the brief of appellee, City of Jackson, it is admitted that 'For some time prior to January 1, 1945, conveyances of tax lands owned by the City of Jackson had been made in the form and manner set out in appellant's bill of complaint.' The factual averments of the original bill are admitted to be true also by appellee's general demurrer to same. About 1944 attorneys for title insurance companies began declining to approve and certify to titles passed by deeds from the Municipality of Jackson executed in the manner and form set out in the bill of complaint, and as a result 'present owners of land who acquired their title through deeds executed in such manner by the City were required by their attorneys to make application to the City for new deeds.' Often the City required additional consideration from its purchasers for a new deed to the same land.

Appellant's property here involved had been bought by the City of Jackson at a tax sale thereof, and the period of redemption thereof had expired, and thereafter, he, Evans, purchased it from the appellee, City of Jackson, on October 28, 1944. The original bill avers: 'That the property conveyed in instruments above mentioned by the City of Jackson was conveyed in pursuance of a resolution on the Minutes of the City of Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, in Minute Book 'V' at Pages 515 and 516, dated November 7th, 1944. * * * That the said deed and resolution above mentioned, were executed and issued by virtue of an ordinance of the City of Jackson, which is a part of the recognized ordinance record of the City of Jackson, Mississippi, and the requirements of the ordinance were fully complied with.' A copy thereof was exhibited with the original bill.

The ordinance, to which reference was made, had been adopted in 1938. Appellant's deed was dated October 28, 1944. The resolution apparently was actually dated October 31, 1944. So, the resolution was adopted and entered on the minutes of the city government three days after the date of the execution and delivery of the deed to appellant. He contends that since the city government had the right to make the sale to him by resolution under the general ordinance, post, and pursuant to the statute, Section 3756, Code 1942, had it been adopted and entered on the minutes before the delivery of the deed, it had the right to ratify the transaction by a similar resolution, adopted and spread on the minutes thereafter. There was no necessity, he argues, to publish this resolution in accordance with Section 3806, Code 1942, dealing with the effective dates of ordinances. Appellee takes the opposite view in each instance, insisting that the resolution must have been adopted and published in the same manner as an ordinance, and for the same length of time, regarding each the every sale of any tract of land bought by the city at tax sale and not redeemed. Section 3806, Code 1942, insofar as pertinent to the issue, reads as follows: ' Every resolution or ordinance passed by the council * * * shall be certified by the city clerk, approved by the mayor or a majority of all the members of the council, published as now required by law or the charter of such city, and recorded in the ordinance book, before the same shall be enforced.' (Italics ours.)

From a careful consideration of the foregoing statutes, it will be observed significantly that the present statute authorizes municipal governing authorities to sell any unredeemed tax forfeited lands, after the period of redemption, in any manner that may be prescribed by an 'order or resolution.' This statute supplanted the amendment to Section 2590, Code 1930, by Chapter 328, Laws 1934, which provided that such sale be prescribed by 'ordinance', which said ordinance might be a special ordinance covering each particular tract of land so sold. An ordinance is enacted to regulate continuing conditions, and constitutes a permanent rule of government. An order deals with temporary powers, and when it has been promulgated and accomplished its purpose, it ceases to have further potentiality. Its usefulness usually ends with the performance of directions. An ordinance generally continues to operate until formally repealed. A resolution 'is merely declaratory of the will of the corporation in a given matter, and in the nature of a ministerial act.' 43 C.J. 519, Sec. 798, Municipal Corporations.

In Section 3756, Code 1942, the correlative use of resolution and order in the phrase 'by an order or resolution', therefore, has a distinct meaning of its own, inconsistent with the language of Section 3806, Code, 1942, wherein the verbiage employed is 'every resolution or ordinance.' Words so situated take their meaning from each other, under the doctrine of noscitur a sociis, the philosophy of which is that the meaning of a doubtful word may be ascertained by reference to the meaning of words associated with it. 46 C.J., Note 33, p. 496. It is a broader maxim than ejusdem generis. It was held in Misch v. Russell, 136 Ill. 22, 26 N.E. 528, 12 L.R.A. 125, that such words as are capable of an analogous meaning, being associated together, take color from each other. Discussing the maxim noscitur a sociis, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in Blake v. Blake, 75 Wis. 339, 43 N.W. 144, declared in effect that the words 'estate', and 'alimony' in revised statutes of Wisconsin, Section 2364, authorizing the court in divorce actions to adjudge to the wife alimony out of the husband's estate, are not only associated within the rule noscitur a sociis, and to be understood in a kindred sense, but are correlatives dependent one on the other for effect, and should be understood in a corresponding sense.

In section 3756 the word 'resolution', by the application of the doctrine noscitur a sociis, takes on the nature of an order when construing that statute, and therefore has a different meaning from the phrase 'resolution or ordinance' in Section 3806, Code 1942 wherein the word 'resolution' takes on the nature of an 'ordinance,' when interpreting the statute. This is further borne out by the fact that the sale of a tract of land is a single transaction as a rule, and the changes in the statute indicate the Legislature finally concluded there was no reason for an ordinance for each sale. The present law does not require publication of the resolution of sale as an ordinance,...