Inhabitants of York v. Goodwin

• Decision Date: 04 August 1877
• Citation: 67 Me. 260
• Parties: INHABITANTS OF YORK v. EDMUND N. GOODWIN.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

67 Me. 260

INHABITANTS OF YORK v. EDMUND N. GOODWIN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

August 4, 1877

ON EXCEPTIONS.

DEBT " For that the said Edmund N. Goodwin, on the first day of April, A. D. 1874, at said York, was an inhabitant of said town of York, and liable to taxation therein, and then and there was the owner and in possession of real estate lying within said town, and then and there was the owner of personal property; and then and there Samuel P. Young, Almon H. Merrow and Joseph H. Moody were the duly elected and legally qualified assessors of the said town of York; and the said assessors did duly and legally assess upon the poll of the defendant, and upon the real estate of the defendant, and upon the personal property of the defendant, as his proportion of the town taxes, and the due proportion of the state and county taxes allotted to said town of York, for the year then current, the following sums, to wit, upon his poll the sum of three dollars; upon his real estate, lying within said town of York, the sum of seventy-three dollars and ninety-eight cents, and upon his personal property the sum of five dollars and twenty-two cents, in all the sum of eighty-two dollars and twenty cents; and the said assessors thereafterwards, to wit, on the twenty-second day of August, A. D. 1874, did make a perfect list thereof under their hands, and commit the same to Joseph Bragdon junior, of that name, who was then and there duly elected and qualified as collector of the said town, with a warrant in due form of law, of that date, under the hands of the said assessors. And plaintiffs further aver that the payment of the said tax has been duly demanded of the said defendant, by the said collector, prior to the commencement of this suit, whereby and by reason of the statute in such case made and provided, an action hath accrued to the plaintiffs, to have and recover of the said defendant the said sum of eighty-two dollars twenty cents, with interest thereon. Yet the said defendant, though requested has not paid the same," & c.

A general demurrer was filed to the writ and declaration by the defendant, joined by the plain tiff and overruled by the presiding justice. The defendant alleged exceptions.

R. P. Tapley, for the defendant, to the point that in order for an act to have a retroactive operation even as a remedy the intent must be clear, cited Hastings v. Lane, 15 Me. 134; Whitman v. Hapgood, 10 Mass. 437; Given v. Marr, 27 Me. 212; Bryant v. Merrill, 55 Me. 515; Prince v. U. States, 2 Gall. 204; Harvey v. Tyler, 2 Wall. 328.

G. C. Yeaton, for the plaintiffs.

APPLETON C. J.

This is an action of debt brought to recover a tax of the defendant under and by virtue of the provisions of the act of 1874, c. 232.

The declaration contains the following averments, to wit: (1.) the defendant was an inhabitant of, and liable to taxation in the town of York; (2.) the due election and legal qualification of certain assessors; (3.)...