Everett v. Adamson

• Decision Date: 03 April 1919
• Docket Number: 14976.
• Parties: EVERETT v. ADAMSON et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

180 P. 144

106 Wash. 355

EVERETT v. ADAMSON et al.

No. 14976.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

April 3, 1919

Appeal from Superior Court, Snohomish County; Guy C. Alston, Judge.

Action by Fred Everett against George W. Adamson, City of Everett and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Reversed.

Wm. A Johnson, of Everett, for appellants.

Peters & Powell and Douglas & Schramm, all of Seattle, for respondent.

Walter B. Whitcomb, of Bellingham, amicus curiae.

HOLCOMB, J.

Everett the respondent, purchased certain certificates of delinquency prior to the passage of section 40, c. 98, Laws 1911, p. 467 which adds to the prerequisites to foreclosure of certificates of delinquency the payment of local improvement assessments. He contends that he is required only to pay the general tax liens imposed at the time of the issuance of the certificates. In this the lower court agreed with him, and the appellant city brings this appeal to determine the effect of the foregoing section upon certificates of delinquency purchased prior to that time.

The respondent argues that the statute was not intended to apply to certificates issued prior to its enactment, or, if so intended, that it is unconstitutional; that, while the rank of local assessments levied after the passage of the section in question may be changed, they cannot be so changed to the detriment of the holder of the lien for general taxes which when acquired by the certificate holder, constituted a prior lien, and that after the transfer of the lien from the state to the individual, evidenced by the certificate, that the state thereafter has no more right to change the rank of that certificate than an individual would have to modify the terms of a contract after his rights under that contract had passed to a third party. He then insistently argues that a certificate issued prior to the enactment of the 1911 law is a contract between the state, acting through the county, and the purchaser of the certificate, by the terms of which the state agrees, by its then current statutes, that the purchaser has a lien upon the property described in the certificate, and that such lien is prior to the lien of local assessments, and by the law and its own terms is guaranteed such priority. Respondent's position is postulated almost entirely upon the theory of contractual relationship.

We cannot concede that contract is analogous to a proposition of this kind. To do so would be to invite a serious curtailment of the sovereign power of taxation; that power which is one of the supreme powers of the state. If we were to hold that the principle of contract applied in one instance in the field of taxation, we would logically be compelled to extend the whole of the principles of contract to the entire field of taxation. We have held consistently that taxation is a matter involving the sovereign power of the state and subject only to the limitations which that sovereignty has imposed upon itself, either in the constitutional or positive law of the state. To read into the operations of the tax laws the particular principles which form the accretion of judicial precedent in matters of individual relationship and of contract would be an unwarranted invasion of the legislative power. The power to tax includes the power to retax and impose other burdens of taxation upon the same subjects of taxation, at the will of the supreme taxing power. The power to levy special assessments for public improvements, according to the benefits, is...