Long v. Phillips
| Decision Date | 22 May 1913 |
| Docket Number | 90 |
| Citation | 241 Pa. 246,88 A. 437 |
| Parties | Long, et al., Appellants, v. Phillips |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued April 23, 1913
Appeal, No. 90, Jan. T., 1913, by plaintiffs, from judgment of C.P. Huntingdon Co., May T., 1912, No. 24, on verdict for defendant in case of A.L. Long, H.F. Deitz and David Hoover v. J.H. Phillips. Reversed.
Trespass to recover damages for cutting and carrying away growing timber. Before WOODS, P.J.
The plaintiffs claimed title through a sale for taxes due on unseated lands, and assessed after the passage of the Act of June 4, 1901, P.L. 364. The defendant had a paper title.
The opinion of the Supreme Court states the facts.
Verdict for defendant by direction of the court, and judgment thereon. Plaintiffs appealed.
Error assigned, among others, was in directing a verdict for defendant.
The judgment is reversed and a new venire awarded.
H. H Waite and James W. Shull, with them James W. Woods, for appellants. -- The legislature has provided a complete consistent classified system of assessment and collection of taxes on unseated lands, differing in manner and form of procedure for assessment and collection of taxes from that upon all other classes of property, which has not been affected by the Act of June 4, 1901, P.L. 364: Cunningham v. Neeld, 198 Pa. 41; Day v. Swanson, 236 Pa 493; Searight's Estate, 163 Pa. 218; Com. v. Gilkeson, 18 Pa.Super. 516; Jefferson County v. Reitz, 56 Pa. 44; Walters's App., 70 Pa. 392; Com. v. Summerville, 204 Pa. 300; McCleary v. Allegheny County, 163 Pa. 578; Com. v. Lehigh Valley R.R. Co., 104 Pa. 89; Lutz's Case, 8 Pa. C.C.R. 133; McHenry's Petition, 6 Pa.Super. 464; Morris v. Del. & S. Canal Co., 4 W. & S. 461; Easton Bank v. Com., 10 Pa. 442; Dickinson v. Dickinson, 61 Pa. 401; Bell v. Allegheny County, 30 W.N.C. 193; Seifried v. Com., 101 Pa. 200; Com. v. DeCamp, 177 Pa. 112; Omit v. Com., 21 Pa. 426; Philadelphia v. Kingsley, 5 Pa. C.C.R. 75; Brook v. Kaufman, 6 Pa. D.R. 513; Marquette v. Berks County, 3 Pa.Super. 36.
Thomas F. Bailey and John D. Dorris, for appellee. -- The Act of April 3, 1804, 4 Sm. Laws 201, and its supplement, the Act of March 13, 1815, 6 Sm. Laws 299, which are the basis of the system of selling unseated lands for taxes, were repealed by the general repealing clause of the Act of June 4, 1901, P.L. 364, and, therefore, the system of the sale of unseated land for taxes, as established by those acts, was not in force in 1902, when the taxes were assessed against the land, afterwards sold for these taxes: Day v. Swanson, 236 Pa. 493; Evans v. Moore, 20 Pa. D.R. 373; Yocum v. County Treasurer, 9 Justices' Law Repr. 125; Davis v. Rocks Coal & Coke Co., 21 Pa. D.R. 649.
Before BROWN, MESTREZAT, ELKIN, STEWART and MOSCHZISKER, JJ.
The single question in this case is whether the Act of June 4, 1901, P.L. 364, relating to the practice and procedure for the filing, collection and extent of tax and municipal claims repealed the prior acts of assembly regulating the practice and procedure in collecting taxes on unseated lands in the Commonwealth. The learned court below held that such was the effect of the Act of 1901 which necessarily resulted in a verdict and judgment in the present case for the defendant. The plaintiffs have taken this appeal.
This action is trespass to recover damages for cutting and carrying away growing timber on four tracts of land in Huntingdon County. The rights of the parties depend on the title to the land. The plaintiffs claim title through a sale made for taxes due on the land as unseated. The defendant has a paper title.
It is a rule of statutory construction that an earlier law will be repealed by implication by an act covering the entire subject matter of the former law, and manifestly intended as a substitute for it. But this rule is founded on the presumption of legislative intent and will not apply where a contrary intent is clearly apparent: Commonwealth v. Brown, 210 Pa. 29. There is no specific repeal by the Act of 1901 of the statutes regulating the levying and collection of taxes on unseated land. It is, however, contended by the appellees that by the Act of 1901 it was the intention of the legislature to repeal the unseated land tax legislation, and that it did so, not only by implication but by expressly repealing all acts appertaining to the same subject, and declaring it to be the intention that the act should furnish a complete and exclusive system regulating the subject.
It is undoubtedly true, as the act declares, that it was the intention to provide a complete and exclusive system of law regulating the subject with which the statute deals, and that in all cases where it is applicable the act is the exclusive remedy and repeals all legislation in conflict with it. It is equally apparent, however, that it was not the legislative intent in the enactment of 1901 to strike down and abrogate the laws regulating the collection of taxes to which it has and can have no application. The question, therefore, in the present case, as in all cases where the act is invoked as a repeal of former legislation, is, does it deal with and relate to the practice and procedure of the taxing system under consideration.
For more than a century this State has had in operation a statutory system for the collection of taxes on unseated lands. It is complete in itself, separate and distinct from that enacted for the collection of taxes on other subjects, and provides in detail for levying and collecting such taxes. Legislation relating to the subject has dealt with it in separate acts to the exclusion of the statutes imposing taxes on other property. The mode of procedure for the assessment and collection of the tax is different from that on other classes of property. As recent as 1885 the legislature indicated its purpose to preserve the former distinction between the procedure for the collection of taxes on seated and unseated lands in the passage of the Act of June 25th of that year, "regulating the collection of taxes in the several boroughs and townships of the Commonwealth," which provides that taxes charged upon unseated lands shall not be collected by the collectors of taxes, but shall be certified and returned by the several authorities levying the same to the county commissioners to be collected as heretofore. This is a distinct recognition by the legislative department of the government of the intention to continue the two separate systems for the collection of taxes. By judicial construction, the statutes dealing with the subject have been moulded into a complete and efficient system for both the practice and procedure in the collection of taxes on such lands, and we do not think it was the intention to repeal them by the Act of 1901. It must be presumed that the legislature knew of the statutes on that subject, and the fact that they were not included in the more than two hundred statutes specifically and expressly repealed is strongly evidential that it was not the intention to interfere with or supply the unseated land system of taxation.
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