In re Proceedings to Enforce Payment of the Taxes on Real Estate Remaining Delinquent on the First Monday of January, 1886, for Stevens, State of Minn.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1887
• Citation: 36 Minn. 467,31 N.W. 942
• Parties: IN RE PROCEEDINGS TO ENFORCE PAYMENT OF THE TAXES ON REAL ESTATE REMAINING DELINQUENT ON THE FIRST MONDAY OF JANUARY, 1886, FOR THE COUNTY OF STEVENS, STATE OF MINNESOTA.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

36 Minn. 467

31 N.W. 942

IN RE PROCEEDINGS TO ENFORCE PAYMENT OF THE TAXES ON REAL ESTATE REMAINING DELINQUENT ON THE FIRST MONDAY OF JANUARY, 1886, FOR THE COUNTY OF STEVENS, STATE OF MINNESOTA.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 2, 1887.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

First Division St. P. & P. R. Co. v. Parcher, 14 Minn. 297, (Gil. 224,) and other cases, followed; holding that the exemption from ordinary taxation, originally created in favor of the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company, passed, with the lands to which it was appendant, to the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, and to the First Division of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company.

That right of exemption being a contract between the state and the corporation, the Minnesota act of March 2, 1865, (Sp. Laws, c. 6,) modifying that exemption, was ineffectual until accepted by the corporation. It not appearing that this was accepted until after the act of March 4, 1865, (Sp. Laws, c. 9,) the latter act (protecting as against tax proceedings the title remaining in the corporation after the lands had been contracted to be sold) is to be deemed a tender by the state of a new contract, which upon acceptance became effectual.

It being established by the admission of the parties that this respondent succeeded to the ownership of certain lands formerly granted to and held by the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company and its successors, and to the exemption from ordinary taxation formerly enjoyed by those corporations, and pertaining to such lands, held, that the title remaining in the respondent after it had contracted to sell such lands (the purchase price being still unpaid, and the conditions of the purchase being still unperformed) is protected, in accordance with the terms of the act of March 4, 1865, from sale for taxes.

Held, following former decisions, that the provisions of law relating to such exemption (originally created prior to the adoption of the constitution) are not unconstitutional.

The Minnesota act of March 4, 1865, was not repealed by the general tax law of 1878.

Certified up from district court, Stevens county.

C. L. Brown, (H. H. Phelps, of counsel,) for County of Stevens, appellant.

R. B. Galusha, (Young & Lightner and S. L. Campbell, of counsel,) for St. Paul, M. & M. Ry. Co., respondent.

DICKINSON, J.

There is here presented the question of the taxability of the estate or interest which the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company has in its lands after the same have been contracted to be sold, but before payment of the purchase price, or the performance of the contract conditions so as to entitle the purchaser to a conveyance. In the tax-list filed in the office of the clerk of the district court the lands in controversy were charged with taxes for the year 1884. The railroad company interposed an answer setting forth the facts, which, as is claimed, show that its estate in the lands is exempt from taxation. The facts as alleged in the answer were stipulated to be true, and were so found by the court. It will be sufficient for the understanding of the case to here allude to these facts, without restating them except in some particulars. The case thus presented comprises the facts of the incorporation of the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company by the territorial act of May 22, 1857, and the regranting to that corporation of congressional grant of lands, made in that year to the territory to aid in the construction of that line of road, and the exemption from ordinary taxation of such granted lands “till sold and conveyed by said company,” in consideration of the annual payment of a percentage of its gross earnings; the subsequent revesting in the state of the franchises, privileges, land, and property of that corporation, and that the same were regranted by the state to the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company by the act of March 10, 1862; the due organization as a corporation, in 1864, of the First Division of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, and that the same became the owner of the so-called “Main Line” of that road, and of all the lands granted to aid in the construction thereof, and of all the property, rights, franchises, immunities, and exemptions of the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company and the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company relating to said line, or to said granted lands; that such organization of the First Division Company, and its title to the road, lands, franchises, immunities, and exemptions were duly confirmed by a public law of the state approved February 6, 1866; the additional congressional grant of March 3, 1865, to aid in the construction of the lines of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company, and the regranting of the same by the state to that corporation, by the act of March 2, 1865; the legislative enactment of March 4, 1865, entitled “An act in relation to the taxation of lands granted to the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company,” providing, among other things, that, whenever any of these lands should be “contracted to be sold,” they should be placed upon the tax-list for taxation as other real estate, but that, in enforcing the collection of the taxes thereon, the title or interest of the said company, or of any trustees or mortgagee thereof, should be in nowise impaired or affected thereby, but that the improvement thereon, and all the interest of the purchaser, should be sold, in case of default, in the payment of the tax; the due acceptance of that act of March 4, 1865, by both the St. Paul & Pacific and the First Division Companies, in the manner designated in the act; that thereupon the said law became, and has ever since been, obligatory upon the state, and upon the said companies, and upon this respondent as their successor, and that the same, and the contract therein expressed, has never been altered, repealed, or rescinded; the due organization of this respondent as a corporation under the general law of the state, and especially under chapter 30 of the General Laws of 1876; that, by purchase at mortgage foreclosure sale in 1879, this respondent became and still is the owner in fee of all that part of the lines of the several roads above referred to, extending from St. Anthony to Breckenridge, formerly known as the “Main Line of the First Division of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company,” and of the lands granted by the United States by several acts of congress, and by the state regranted to said companies, or either of them, to aid in the construction of said main line, and of all the...