Gordon v. Sanderson

• Decision Date: 29 February 1896
• Citation: 43 N.E. 128,165 Mass. 375
• Parties: GORDON v. SANDERSON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

165 Mass. 375

43 N.E. 128

GORDON v. SANDERSON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

February 29, 1896

COUNSEL

M.J. Connolly and J.P. Lyons, for petitioner.

C.M Ludden, for respondent.

OPINION

FIELD C.J.

This is a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the collector of taxes of the city of Waltham to receive payment of a poll tax assessed upon the petitioner for the year 1893. It appears that a poll tax was duly assessed upon the petitioner; that his name was placed upon the tax list which was committed to the respondent, as collector, with a warrant requiring him to collect the taxes upon the list; and that the collector sent a tax bill by mail to the petitioner about the 1st day of September in that year. On September 14th he received the following certificate: "City of Waltham. Assessor's Office, Sept. 14, 1893. To Emory J. Sanderson, Treasurer and Collector of Taxes: An abatement of two dollars is hereby allowed on the tax assessed to Michael Gordon, of 7 John street, in Ward 7 of the tax list of 1893. E.P. Smith, J.F Davis,--A Majority of the Board of Assessors." After this, on November 14, 1893, the petitioner tendered to the respondent the sum of two dollars in payment of this poll tax, which the respondent refused to receive. The petitioner did not make any application to the assessors, for an abatement of the tax, and has always been ready to pay it. No cause of abatement appears on the records of the assessors, and it is said that the only entry on the records of the assessors is the word "Abated," placed against the assessment of the tax. Apparently the object of the petitioner in attempting to pay this tax is to obtain a settlement in the city of Waltham. Pub.St. c. 83, § 1, cl. 5. The counsel of the petitioner contends that the respondent cannot justify his refusal to receive the amount of this tax under the certificate of the board of assessors, because either the assessors had no right to abate the tax, or, if they had, the record of the assessors is defective, and does not show that the tax was lawfully abated. The statutory provisions concerning the abatement of taxes are Pub.St. c. 11, §§ 69-77, and it is said that the present case is not within any of the provisions of these sections. Section 77 of this chapter was first enacted in St.1878, c. 77. See St.1879, c 43. But by section 11, cl. 12, of the same chapter, which was taken from Gen.St. c. 11, § 5, cl....