People v. Stahl
| Decision Date | 18 January 1882 |
| Citation | 101 Ill. 346,1882 WL 10167 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOISv.F. STAHL. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
APPEAL from the County Court of Effingham county; the Hon. JOSEPH B. JONES, Judge, presiding.
Mr. R. C. HARRAH, for the appellant.
Mr. B. F. KAGAY, for the appellee.
This was an application by the collector of Effingham county, to the county court of that county, for judgment against delinquent lands and town lots for the year 1880, and prior years. Objections made by F. Stahl to any judgment against lots owned by him, were so far sustained that the court only rendered judgment against his lots for the taxes due thereon for the year 1880, but abated the taxes for 1879, and refused to render judgment for back taxes on his lots for the years 1877 and 1878, because an action at law was pending in a court of competent jurisdiction for a personal judgment against the owner for the taxes due for those years. Exceptions were taken to the decision of the court, which have been preserved in the record, in the usual mode, and the People ask to have the judgment of the county court, abating the taxes on objector's lots for 1879, and refusing to render judgment for back taxes due for prior years, reversed. Of the objections taken in the county court at the trial, only two are now insisted upon: First, imperfect description of the property; and second, there is now a personal judgment against the owner for the back taxes due on his lots for 1878 and 1877.
The property assessed is lots 1 and 2, in block 17, of the county clerk's subdivision of the north-east quarter of the south-east quarter of section 20, in a town and range stated. The imperfect description insisted upon has no application to the assessment for 1880. His lots were assessed that year by what the owner concedes was a definite and certain description. Judgment was rendered against the property for 1880, and the owner seems to have acquiesced in the decision, as no cross-errors are assigned, and no complaint is made on that score.
It appears that for the prior years the property was assessed in the name of the objector as lots 1 and 2, in block 17, in the town of Effingham, or Effingham proper. The only question made is, whether it is the same property that was assessed to the objector in 1880. As respects the identity of the property, there can not be the shadow of a doubt. The town of Effingham was in fact laid out on the north-east quarter of the south-east quarter of section 20. It was on that tract the surveyor doing the work for the proprietor ran his lines, and divided the ground into lots and blocks, numbered in the usual way, and planted monuments to mark the boundaries of his survey. The plat made by the surveyor, which was acknowledged by the proprietor and was duly recorded, corresponds with the survey actually made. The difficulty, if any exists, arises out of a mistake in the surveyor's certificate, descriptive of the land actually surveyed. It was inadvertently described by him as the north-east quarter of the north-east quarter, instead of the north-east quarter of the south-east quarter of section 20. But that error did not render the survey and subdivision of the property into lots and blocks uncertain, and for that reason void. Monuments planted by the surveyor at the time of doing the work, fixed the boundaries of the survey as definitely and certainly as any written description could possibly do. It is well understood law that monuments established by the surveyor at the time of making his survey will always prevail over written descriptions, where a contradiction exists. It seems the county clerk caused the north-east quarter of the south-east quarter to be subdivided precisely as it was originally surveyed for the proprietor laying out the town of Effingham, and under the provisions of the statute had the plat recorded, with a view, no...
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...Wright, supra. If it enables a surveyor to identify the land. Law v. People, 80 Ill. 268; Fowler v. People, 93 Ill. 116; People v. Stahl, 101 Ill. 346; Cairo V. & C. Ry. Co. v. Mathews, 38 N.E. 623; Koehling v. People, 63 N.E. 735; Harts v. Mackinack Island, 92 N.W. 351; Wash. T. & L. Co. v......
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...no difficulty in locating the land assessed by the description given, and the rule of law was again declared in that case. In People v. Stahl, 101 Ill. 346, the certificate of the surveyor of the town of Effingham misdescribed the tract on which the town was in fact laid out. There were mon......
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