Little River Lumber Co., Ltd. v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 21 January 1907
• Docket Number: 16,279
• Citation: 42 So. 938,118 La. 284
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: LITTLE RIVER LUMBER CO., Limited, v. THOMPSON et al

42 So. 938

118 La. 284

LITTLE RIVER LUMBER CO., Limited, v. THOMPSON et al

No. 16,279

Supreme Court of Louisiana

January 21, 1907

Appeal from Thirteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Grant Wilbur Fisk Blackman, Judge.

Action by the Little River Lumber Company, Limited, against A. B Thompson and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Blackman & Overton and W. C. & J. B. Roberts, for appellants.

William Butler Clarke, for appellee.

OPINION

LAND J.

This is a suit to confirm a tax title under Act No. 101, p. 127 of 1898, to certain pine lands situated in the parish of Grant. These lands were entered from the United States in the year 1860 by William M. Phillips. In May, 1889, this property was sold for the taxes of 1888 and previous years assessed against Wm. M. Phillips, and was adjudicated to Wm. L. Burton and Mrs. Alice M. Ringold, from whom the plaintiff derives its title through mesne conveyances.

The defendants A. B. and S. G. Thompson trace their title to the heirs of Wm. M. Phillips by act of sale executed in June, 1900.

Defendants in their answer aver the nullity of the tax title, (1) because the tax deed contains no recital that notice was given to the tax debtor or his heirs, (2) that the tax debtor was dead at the time of the tax sale, and had died long previous thereto, (3) that no notice of the delinquency of the taxes was given to the tax debtor or his heirs, and (4) that the tax debtor was dead when the pretended assessment, advertisement, and sale were made.

The lands were assessed to Wm. M. Phillips for the years 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888. The tax deed contains no recital of notice, but is otherwise in due form. At the date of the tax sale in 1889, no one was in possession of the property. In June, 1900, A. B. Thompson purchased the lands from the heirs of Phillips. About 1900 S. G. Thompson, one of the defendants, cut some timber on the land. No one has been in actual or corporeal possession of the lands in controversy. William M. Phillips died on January 31, 1889. Two of his heirs testified that none of them had ever received written notice from the tax collector of Grant parish that taxes were due and delinquent on the lands they conveyed to A. B. Thompson. They do not testify that no notice was given to their father. The tax collector was required by sections 50 and 51 of Act No. 85, p. 129, of 1888, on the 2d day of January, 1889, or as soon thereafter as possible, to mail notices of the delinquency of the taxes on immovables to each taxpayer, addressed to him at his post office. Hence, if the tax collector of the parish of Grant did his duty in the premises, he mailed the proper notice to Wm. M. Phillips prior to his death on January 31, 1889.

A tax deed, under article 210 of the Constitution of 1879, furnishes prima facie evidence of a valid tax sale although it contains no recital that notice was given as required by the statute. "The law presumes that those things were done which it commanded to be done," and imposes on the defendant the burden of adducing "some evidence of failure to...