Market National Bank v. Inhabitants of Belmont
| Decision Date | 28 June 1884 |
| Citation | 137 Mass. 407 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | Market National Bank v. Inhabitants of Belmont & others |
Middlesex. Bill in equity, filed January 26, 1883, to remove a cloud upon the title to a parcel of land in Cambridge. At the hearing, the bill was dismissed, with costs; and the plaintiff appealed to the full court. The facts appear in the opinion.
Bill dismissed.
M. M Weston, for the plaintiff.
C. A Welch, for the defendant town.
The assessors of Belmont assessed the taxes upon the land in question, for the years 1876 and 1877, to Jacob Hittinger. These assessments were illegal, because Hittinger was not the owner of the land. Miner v. Pingree, 110 Mass. 47. As each tax was invalid by reason of this error and irregularity, it was within the power of the assessors of Belmont to reassess it "to the just amount to which, and upon the estate and to the person to whom, such tax ought at first to have been assessed." Gen. Sts. c. 11 § 53. Pub. Sts. c. 11, § 79. And taxes thus reassessed constitute a lien upon the real estate for two years after they are committed to the collector, and can be levied by a sale of the estate, "unless the estate "unless the estate has been alienated between the first and second assessments." Gen. Sts. c. 12, §§ 22, 23. Pub. Sts. c. 12, §§ 24, 25. Acting under these statutes, the assessors of Belmont, in March, 1881, reassessed the taxes for the years 1876 and 1877 to Whitmore and Smith, who were the owners in those years, and the persons to whom such taxes ought first to have been assessed; and afterwards the collector duly sold the land for the non-payment of the reassessed taxes to the town of Belmont, and conveyed it to said town.
The plaintiff contends that the title thus acquired by the town is invalid, for two reasons: first, because, at the time of the reassessment, the land in question was within the limits of Cambridge, and not in Belmont; and, second, because there had been an alienation of the land between the two assessments.
1. By the St. of 1880, c. 204, a part of the town of Belmont, which included the land in question, was set off from Belmont and annexed to the city of Cambridge. But § 2 of the statute provides that "the inhabitants and estates within the territory hereby set off and the owners of such estates shall be holden to pay all taxes assessed and in arrears to the same persons, and such taxes may be collected in the same manner as if this act had not been passed."
The object of the Legislature was to prevent the passage of this statute from impairing the right of Belmont to enforce and collect its taxes laid in previous years. A reassessed tax is not, strictly speaking, a new tax. It is a...
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Commonwealth v. United Cigarette Mach. Co
...701; State v. Simmons. 70 Miss. 485, 502, 12 South. 477; James, Auditor, v. Am. Surety Co. (Ky.) 117 S. W. 411, 413; Market Nat. Bank v. Belmont, 137 Mass. 407, 408. The court was also right in holding that no interest should be charged. As to the years 1914 and 1915, the order of the court......
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City of Worcester v. Bennett
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