Midway Realty Co. v. City of St. Paul
| Decision Date | 09 January 1914 |
| Citation | 124 Minn. 300,145 N.W. 21 |
| Parties | MIDWAY REALTY CO. v. CITY OF ST. PAUL et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; Frederick N. Dickson, Judge.
The Midway Realty Company applied to register title to certain lots in Joseph R. Weide's Second addition to St. Paul, to which the City of St. Paul had city assessment certificates based on local improvement assessments. From the judgment, defendant named appeals. Reversed and remanded, with directions.
Applicant holds a Governor's deed, issued April 27, 1912, pursuant to a forfeited tax sale held November 13, 1911, for general taxes for the years 1896 to 1910. The city of St. Paul holds certificates issued on sale for local improvement assessments, warrants for collection of which were issued in 1900, 1901, 1907, and 1908. The time for redemption from these sales has now expired. Following Gould v. City of St. Paul, 120 Minn. 172, 139 N. W. 293, it is held: Under chapter 200, Laws 1905, general tax liens and city assessment liens are of equal rank. The general rules as to tax liens of equal rank apply. Each lien is superior to all that precede it in time. A later tax or assessment lien will take priority over all earlier liens, whether for taxes or assessments.
Priority as between such liens is determined as of the date of accrual of the original lien, not as of the date of sale.
All city assessments accruing in any year are equal in right of priority with the lien of taxes for that year.
Where land is sold at a forfeited tax sale for taxes for a number of years for an entire amount, the lien of the holder of a certificate issued on such a sale is equal in right with an assessment lien accruing in any one of those years.
Where title is obtained under such liens, equal in right of priority, by sale and expiration of the period of redemption, the holders thereof become by operation of law tenants in common or the property.
A constitutional law passed by the Legislature is not against public policy. It is public policy. O. H. O'Neill and J. P. Kyle, both of St. Paul, for appellant.
William G. White, of St. Paul, for respondent.
[1] 1. The Midway Realty Company holds a Governor's deed issued April 27, 1912, pursuant to a forfeited tax sale held November 13, 1911, for general taxes for the years 1896 to 1910. The city of St. Paul has city assessment certificates based on local improvement assessments, the warrants for the collection of which were issued as follows: February 2, 1900, under which the premises were sold May 24, 1901; August 9, 1901, under which the premises were sold December 14, 1901; October 14, 1907, under which the premises were sold March 14, 1908; and February 26, 1908, under which the premises were sold October 3, 1908. The time for redemption from each sale expired five years after the date of sale.
We cannot distinguish this case from the case of Gould v. City of St. Paul, 120 Minn. 172, 139 N. W. 293. In that case plaintiff held a Governor's deed issued upon a sale made November 25, 1907, for forfeited taxes for the years 1891, 1892, and 1901 to 1906, inclusive. The city held title under a city certificate based on an assessment, the warrant for collection of which was issued in May, 1902, and the sale made November 8, 1902, and the time for redemption expired November 8, 1907. Taking the first two city certificates in this case, the parallel is exact. Both in that case and this the forfeited tax sale was for taxes accruing the same year as the city assessment under which the city claimed, and also for years both before and after. In both cases the time of redemption from the city assessment sale had expired, and the forfeited tax sale was made thereafter, and title still later matured thereunder. In the Gould Case it was held that the parties were tenants in common of the land. It is plain that the same result must be reached here, if the Gould Case is to be followed.
The writer of this opinion did not participate in the decision in the Gould Case, and in a nisi prius case previously tried, but not appealed, expressed some views not in harmoney therewith; but the decision in the Gould Case was reached in this court after an exhaustive consideration of this subject in all its bearings, and it is adhered to and followed as determining the questions of law there involved.
Prior to 1905, the charter of the city of St. Paul provided in terms too plain to be susceptible of misunderstanding that ‘the lien for a local assessment is subordinate to the lien of the state for taxes levied under the general laws of the state, without reference to the time when the lien of the state accrues.’ White v. Knowlton, 84 Minn. 141, 86 N. W. 755; City Charter 1893, § 139, p. 134; Special Laws 1887, c. 7, subc. 7, § 47.
Chapter 200, Laws 1905, changed this rule and provided: ‘That all assessments upon real property for local improvements made or levied by the proper authorities of any city in the state * * * shall be a paramount lien upon the land upon which they are imposed from the date of the warrant issued for the collection thereof, and of equal rank with the lien of the state for taxes which have been or may be levied upon said property under the general laws of the state; and that the general rules of law as to priority of tax liens shall apply equally to the liens of such assessments and to such liens for general taxes, with the same force and effect as though all of the liens aforesaid and all of the taxes and assessments aforesaid, were of the same general character and imposed for the same purpose and by the same authority, without regard to the priority in point of time of the attaching of either of said liens, and a sale or perfecting title under either shall not bar or extinguish the other.’
It is to be borne in mind that, in St. Paul, local assessments...
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