Keely v. Sanders

• Decision Date: 01 October 1878
• Citation: 99 U.S. 441,25 L.Ed. 327
• Parties: KEELY v. SANDERS
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

99 U.S. 441

25 L.Ed. 327

KEELY v. SANDERS.

October Term, 1878

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of Tennessee.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. William M. Randolph for the plaintiff in error.

There was no opposing counsel.

MR. JUSTICE STRONG delivered the opinion of the court.

In the courts of the State this was a bill to quiet title to a parcel of ground in the city of Memphis, filed against the appellant, who claims to be the owner by virtue of a sale for direct taxes made June 24, 1864, and who holds a certificate of tax sale (No. 1054) given to him in accordance with the seventh section of the act of June 7, 1862 (12 Stat. 422), as amended by the act of Feb. 6, 1863. The force and effect of that certificate we have had occasion to consider in De Treville v. Smalls, 98 U. S. 517. By the act of Congress it is made prima facie evidence of the regularity and validity of the tax sale and of the title of the purchaser under it, and it is enacted that it shall only be affected as evidence of the regularity and validity of the sale by establishing the fact that the property was not subject to taxes, or that the taxes had been paid previously to the sale, or that the property had been redeemed according to the provisions of the act. The bill assails the title of the appellant, and charges that the sale made to him was null and void, for ten different reasons, which it assigns. Most of them are assertions of fact, denied in the answer and sustained by no proof. Among the charges is one that at the time of the tax sale the property was in custodia legis, and that under orders of the State court in which the lis was pending all creditors—individual, State, and Federal—were enjoined from selling or interfering with the same. This, of course, was susceptible of proof only by the record. But no such record was produced. All that was submitted was the parol testimony of a witness that the Chancery Court and the Supreme Court had both taken jurisdiction of the property, and ordered sales of the same, or parts thereof, to pay the debts of the decedent owner. Waiving, however, objection to this mode of proof, we do not perceive that the fact charged, if it was a fact, had any tendency to impair the validity of the tax sale. Such a sale did not disturb any possession which the State court had of the property; and no State court could, by injunction or otherwise, prevent Federal officers from collecting Federal taxes. The government of the United States, within its sphere, is independent of State action; and certainly it would be a strange thing if a State court by its action could relieve property to Federal taxation from liability to pay the taxes when they are due.

Secondly, the bill charges that the property was misdescribed in the publication, orders of sale, and in the sale itself, and that no legal or proper notice of the sale was ever given by advertisement or otherwise. There is, however, no proof of any material misdescription. The lot was described as follows: 'Market Street and Thornton Avenue part of country lot five hundred and six (506) two acres, assessed to Sanders and Perkins in 1860, fifth civil district, city of Memphis.' That this was a true description, quite sufficient to identify the property, is not denied. Nor is it denied that it is the same as that made in the State assessment of 1860. But it is charged that though the property was part of lot 506, as described, the part sold was known as portions of lots 19 and 3, allotted to the heirs and devisees of Sanders. It was not, however, described in the State assessment by those numbers, and mentioning those numbers in the description made by the tax commissioners would have added nothing to its certainty. The purposes in describing lands to be sold at a tax sale, says Judge Cooley, in his Law of Taxation, p. 284, 'are, first, that the owner may have information of the claim made upon him or his property; second, that the public, in case the tax is not paid, may be notified what land is to be offered for sale for the non-payment; and, third, that the purchaser may be enabled to obtain a sufficient conveyance.' 'If the description is sufficient for the first purpose, it will ordinarily be sufficient for the others also.' There can be no doubt that the description in this case was all that was needed to identify the land, and to inform the Sanders heirs or devisees, who are the complainants in the bill, of the claim made upon their property.

As to the objection that the property was not advertised for sale legally and properly, it is sufficient to say that the act of Congress makes the commissioners' certificate of sale prima facie evidence of the regularity and validity of the sale and of the title of the purchaser. Even if it is not conclusive of the existence of every thing antecedent necessary to such regularity and validity, except liability for taxes and their non-payment, it is affirmative evidence, controlling until rebutted. In this case, so far from there being any evidence to rebut the prima facies of the certificate, or any evidence to support the allegation of the bill, there is positive testimony that the property was advertised for sale in a newspaper then published in Memphis.

Thus far we have not considered the effect of the proviso to the seventh section of the act of 1863. That should not be overlooked. After having declared that the commissioners' certificate should be prima facie evidence both of the regularity and validity of the sale, as well as of the title of the purchaser, Congress went further, and enacted that it should be affected as evidence of such regularity, validity, and title only by establishing one or more of three facts: non-liability of the property for taxes, or that the taxes had been paid before the sale, or that the property had been redeemed. Of what possible use was this proviso, unless it was intended to make the certificate conclusive of the validity of the sale and the title of the purchaser, unless it should be impeached by establishing one of the three facts mentioned? If it meant only that proof of the existence of one of those facts should destroy the prima facie effect of the certificate, it was quite superfluous. Without it, if either of those facts existed, a sale would have been invalid, and the certificate good for nothing, no matter how regularly the sale might have been conducted, or how fully and correctly it might have been advertised, or how accurate might have been the assessment. Congress must have had a purpose in the proviso, and what that was it is not difficult to discover. It was not to repeat what had been enacted in the same section. The provisions of the whole act were designed to enforce the collection of direct taxes in insurrectionary districts, avowedly so. Governmental disturbance in such districts must have been anticipated, as well as only a partial restoration of the ordinary forms of governmental rule, while the districts were under military control, and consequent irregularities in the processes of collecting taxes. Substance, therefore, not form, was to be required. Hence the proviso. It secured to land-owners every substantial defence against sales for taxes, and made the sale certificate conclusive of every thing else. Such was our opinion expressed in De Treville v. Smalls, and we adhere to it now.

The fourth and fifth objections to the validity of the sale are, that while the taxes due bore but a small proportion to the value of the property, the commissioners sold it as an entirety without subdivision. If this was...