Forwood v. City of Louisville
| Decision Date | 24 May 1940 |
| Citation | 283 Ky. 208 |
| Parties | Forwood v. City of Louisville. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
1. Municipal Corporations. — Rights of property owner paying delinquent city real estate taxes under protest are governed by the statute prescribing period for the enforcement by city of tax liens before its amendment, where taxes were assessed and became in arrears before enactment of amendment, and period of limitation prescribed by unamended statute had expired before amendment (Ky. Stats., 1936, sec. 4021a-1).
2. Municipal Corporations. — A purchaser of property at a tax sale, made to enforce the tax lien of a city, has no cause of action to recover possession of property purchased until he obtains a deed, which he cannot do until expiration of taxpayer's right of redemption (Ky. Stats. 1936, secs. 3000-3004).
3. Constitutional Law. — The limitation period within which a purchaser of property at a tax sale, for delinquent city taxes, may recover possession after obtaining his deed is not reduced by deducting the time provided for redemption of property by taxpayer, since, if Legislature intended by statute to fix a retroactive period for accruing of purchaser's right of action to recover possession of property after he obtained his deed, the statute violated fundamental principles of statutes of limitations and should not be enforced (Ky. Stats. 1936, secs. 3000-3004, 4021; Ky. Stats. Supp. 1939, sec. 4021a-1).
4. Limitation of Actions. — The "accrual of the cause of action" for purpose of limitations means the right to institute and maintain a suit, and where a party's right depends on the happening of a certain event in the future, the cause of action accrues, and limitations begin to run from the time when the event happens.
5. Statutes. — It is the duty of the courts to make statutes conform to the principles of justice and constitutional guarantees so as to produce workable as well as just applications of the statutes.
6. Constitutional Law. — The limitation period for the recovery of property purchased at a tax sale cannot be shortened so as to leave limitation period unreasonable.
7. Municipal Corporations. — A city had five years from November 7, 1934, the date on which it obtained a tax deed to recover possession of property from taxpayer, and hence taxes paid by taxpayer on July 10, 1939, were not barred by limitations, so as to entitle taxpayer to recover taxes paid under protest (Ky. Stats. 1936, secs. 3000-3004; Ky. Stats. Supp. 1939, sec. 4021a-1).
Appeal from Jefferson Circuit Court.
Fisher & Seidman for appellant.
R. Boyd Robertson, Hal O. Williams and Lawrence S. Poston for appellee.
Before Churchill Humphrey, Judge.
Affirming.
This action was filed in the Jefferson circuit court by appellant against the appellee to recover from the latter the sum of $559.51, but which defendant claimed was due it for taxes on real estate in the city for the fiscal years 1932, 1933 and 1934, which became delinquent on May 2nd each year. The payment by plaintiff to the defendant of the amount sought to be recovered from it was made on July 10, 1939. He did so under protest, which is endorsed on the receipts given to him by the collecting officer of the city at the time the payment was made, and plaintiff averred in his petition that it was done to remove a cloud from the title to the assessed property for those years, which he had contracted to sell at a profitable figure, but the purchaser refused to comply with the sale until the alleged cloud on the title — because of the unpaid taxes — was removed. No one contends or questions the right of plaintiff to maintain the action, if it should be admitted that his premises were correct, i.e., that the right to an enforced collection of the taxes was barred by limitations at the time he made payment thereof under protest. It is, therefore, conceded by both sides to the litigation that the only question involved is — whether or not at the time of the payment by plaintiff the right to enforce the lien for the total amount of the taxes claimed by defendant was then barred so as to deprive it of the right to enforce payment? The learned chancellor sustained a demurrer to the petition, followed by plaintiff declining to plead further, when the court dismissed the action, to reverse which he prosecutes this appeal.
The single question raised is one which our legislature by its various enacted statutes has very much scrambled and confused, as will be seen from this court's opinions in the cases of Commonwealth v. Randolph, 277 Ky. 724, 127 S.W. (2d) 398; City of Louisville v. Louisville Asphalt Company, 279 Ky. 318, 130 S.W. (2d) 739; and Commonwealth et al. v. Union Labor Temple, 279 Ky. 692, 131 S.W. (2d) 843. The first and third cited cases involved the collection of state and county taxes by the sheriff or some other collector for those taxing authorities; whilst the second one involved the collection of taxes assessed by and due to the city of Louisville. However, there was involved in each of them — and also in the case of Russell, Sheriff, v. County Board of Education of Logan County, 247 Ky. 703, 57 S.W. (2d) 681 () referred to in those opinions — Section 4021a-1 of Baldwin's 1936 Revision of Carroll's Kentucky Statutes as it existed before its amendment by Chapter 21, Section 16 of the first extraordinary session acts of 1938, and which is now carried in the supplement to our Statutes, supra, appearing since its publication, as the same numbered section. The section before its amendment said: "No action or other proceeding for the enforcement of any lien for taxes or for recovery of possession of any property which has been sold for taxes shall be maintained unless such action or proceeding is commenced within five years from the date on which said taxes became in arrears." (Our emphasis)
It immediately follows Section 4021 in the same Statutes, which gives a lien to all taxing authorities within the commonwealth on property assessed by them and for taxes due them thereon, and, of course, the inserted section, supra, likewise applies to all such taxing authorities. It, therefore, is and has been applicable to the enforcement of the lien for taxes due the city of Louisville from and after the day it was first passed in 1912. It will be observed that the section (4021a-1) before the amendment not only prescribes a limitation of five years, from the time the taxes became in arrears, for the maintenance of proceedings to enforce the tax lien given by the immediately preceding section, but it also prescribed the same limitation — commencing at the same designated period — "for recovery of possession of any property which has been sold for taxes." The 1938 amendment eliminated from the section the words "or for recovery of possession of any property which has been sold for taxes." However, the rights of the parties in this case are to be determined by the condition of the law as it existed prior to the amendment, since the involved taxes were not only assessed and became in arrears (or delinquent) before it (amendment) was enacted but the period of limitation prescribed by the unamended section for the enforcement of the lien had expired before the amendment.
In this case, as is shown by the petition and admitted by defendant, the provisions of Sections 3000 to and including 3004 of Baldwin's 1936 Revision of Carroll's Kentucky Statutes, supra, were strictly complied with and followed for the enforcement of the city's lien for taxes for the fiscal year 1932, as based on the assessment made in 1931. As a part of such requirement by the collector of the taxes he offered the property here involved for sale on November 7, 1932, at which time the city became the purchaser thereof. At that time, under the sections referred to, the taxpayer had two years in which to redeem the property after it was sold by the collecting officer, and Section 3004 provides that ...
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