Herndon v. Mayfield

• Decision Date: 13 January 1902
• Citation: 79 Miss. 533,31 So. 103
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: JOHN R. HERNDON v. JAMES A. MAYFIELD

31 So. 103

79 Miss. 533

JOHN R. HERNDON v. JAMES A. MAYFIELD

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 13, 1902

FROM the chancery court of Monroe county. HON. HENRY L. MULDROW Chancellor.

Mayfield the appellee, was the complainant in the court below Herndon, appellant, was defendant there. The opinion of the court states the case.

Affirmed.

Gilleylen & Leftwich, for appellant.

It is well established in this state that the board of supervisors is a court of limited jurisdiction, and all jurisdictional facts must appear affirmatively on its record, else the presumption is against their existence. Root v. McFerrin, 37 Miss. 1; Boliver v. Coleman, 71 Miss. 832; Lester v. Miller, 76 Miss. 309.

The order of the board of supervisors granting time to the assessor within which to complete the assessment rolls is utterly void. The record nowhere shows jurisdictional facts. It does not show that the board investigated the competency of the assessor to complete the rolls, and it did not adjudge him competent to do so. The record does not show that the assessor had a good excuse, or any excuse whatever, for not having completed the rolls by the time fixed by law. There was no approval of the roll at any time by operation of law or otherwise. McGuire v. Union. Co., 76 Miss. 868; Wolfe v. Murphy, 60 Miss. 1.

Section 3794 of the code of 1892, providing that assessments may be approved by an order of the board entered on its minutes or in certain case by operation of law, cannot apply to assessments for the year 1892. To apply the statute to assessments of 1892 would be to give it a retroactive effect, which cannot be done. Carlisle v. Good, 71 Miss. 453.

Walker & Tubb, for appellee.

The tax deed was prima facie evidence of our clients right to the decree which he obtained. Code of 1892, § 1806; Mixon v. Clevinger, 74 Miss. 67. To overcome this prima facie case, the appellant contended that the assessment on which the tax sale is based was invalid. First, because the tax assessor did not complete and deliver the rolls to the supervisors on the first Monday in July, 1892; second, because, as he says, the supervisors extended time until the first Monday of August to the assessor to complete the assessment, and, third, because the minutes of the board of supervisors failed to show an approval of the assessment. The board of supervisors acted under § 3784, code of 1892, in extending the time to the assessor. The law does not require that the evidence on which the board acted should be made of record. The order actually made, by necessary implication, adjudges the assessor competent to complete the roll, and further, in the same way, adjudges that a valid excuse had been offered by the assessor for his failure to have the rolls completed at the board's meeting. The reasoning of Lester v. Miller, 76 Miss. 309, does not apply to the case before the court. The prima facie case made by the deed was not overcome touching the question of the approval of the assessment roll for two reasons: First, the assessment should have been approved at the September meeting, and the entire minutes of that meeting were not offered in evidence. A part of the minutes had been destroyed and there was nothing to show the contents of the lost portion. But beyond all this, there is nothing to show that objections were made to the assessment after it was completed, or that, if objections were made, they were not heard, and by the provisions of the code. § 3784, the necessity of an order approving the rolls was dispensed with, and the rolls in such case, if not affirmatively approved by an order on the minutes of the board of supervisors was approved by operation of law.

OPINION

TERRAL, J.

On the 2d day of March, 1896, the tax collector of Monroe county sold to J. A. Mayfield, for the taxes due thereon, the N.W 1-4 of S. E. 1-4 of section 27, township 12, range 18 W., and conveyed the same to him. ...