King v. Mount Vernon Building Association.
| Decision Date | 14 April 1884 |
| Citation | 106 Pa. 165 |
| Parties | King <I>versus</I> Mount Vernon Building Association. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Before MERCUR, C. J., GORDON, PAXSON, TRUNKEY, and GREEN, JJ. STERRETT and CLARK, JJ., absent
ERROR to the Court of Common Pleas No. 3, of Philadelphia county: Of January Term, 1884, No. 88.
John G. Johnson, for the plaintiff in error.—Personal liability for taxes is an incident of ownership of the land at the time the taxes are assessed. One who purchases the land subsequently, whether during the year for which the taxes were due or not, and is compelled to pay the taxes, may recover them back in a personal action against his grantor. The mere purchase of lands on which taxes have previously been assessed, and which remain unpaid, imposes no personal liability on the purchaser, to reimburse a subsequent purchaser from him who afterwards is obliged to pay such taxes in relief of the land. This doctrine is consistent with the decision in Hogg v. Longstreth, 1 Out., 255. Here the taxes for 1879 were assessed during Hancock's admitted ownership, and he therefore became personally liable to pay them. There are not several personal liabilities, one incident to the ownership at the time of the assessment, and others, indefinite in number, incident to any subsequent ownership while the taxes remain due and unpaid. Nor is there any apportionment of such liability: Shaw v. Quinn, 12 S. & R., 299. Upon what principle then does the plaintiff seek to hold King personally liable for the taxes of 1879, which were assessed and became due prior to his ownership? As to the taxes for subsequent years, he cannot be personally liable, as he re-conveyed the property in June 1879, three days after he took title. It is said the conveyance and re-conveyance were made with intent to defraud Hancock's creditors. There is no evidence of that, or of King's knowledge of a participation in such alleged fraud, but, if that were otherwise, it would be wholly irrelevant to the question in this case. Equally irrelevant was the question as to the actual delivery of the deed from King to Joel C. Hancock; delivery is presumed and there was no evidence sufficient to rebut that presumption.
George Junkin, for the defendant in error.—The question of King's ownership from the time he took title until the plaintiff purchased at sheriff's sale in 1882, was distinctly submitted to the jury, in the charge of the court, (see third assignment of error) and the verdict established his ownership during that time. He is, therefore, clearly liable for the taxes of 1881 and 1882, and we contend that, under Hogg v. Longstreth, 1 Out., 255, he was also personally liable for the taxes of 1879. In that case there was a recovery, inter alia, for the taxes of 1874 which were assessed in 1873 against the previous owner, and TRUNKEY, J., said: "By force of law the taxes were a personal charge against the defendant, as well as a lien on the real estate." So also in Caldwell v. Moore, 1 Jones, 58.
The taxes for 1879 were assessed against Joseph B. Hancock, who was at that time the owner of the premises No. 1728 Girard Avenue. Hancock conveyed to Miles King on the fourteenth of June 1879, and on the seventeenth of the same month King executed a deed for the same premises in favor of Joel C. Hancock. The latter deed was not recorded and does not appear to have been delivered. It remained in the hands of Henry Haines the conveyancer, and was by him produced upon the trial below.
The court below held that King was personally responsible for the taxes of 1879, though he held the title but for three days. This we think was error. It is undoubtedly true that an owner of real estate against whom taxes have been assessed is personally responsible for such taxes. But it was held in Shaw v. Quinn, 12 S. & R., 299, that "Taxes on real estate cannot be apportioned among the different persons who may become owners of it during the year; the person charged at the beginning of the year, is liable for the taxes of...
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