Provenzano v. Clark County, 3990

• Decision Date: 24 December 1957
• Docket Number: No. 3990,3990
• Citation: 319 P.2d 855,73 Nev. 348
• Parties: Bernard V. PROVENZANO, Appellant, v. COUNTY OF CLARK, a political subdivision of the State of Nevada; Harley E. Harmon, George H. Albright, and Rodney A. Colton, constituting said Board of County Commissioners, Respondents.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Page 855

319 P.2d 855

73 Nev. 348

Bernard V. PROVENZANO, Appellant, v. COUNTY OF CLARK, a political subdivision of the State of Nevada; Harley E. Harmon, George H. Albright, and Rodney A. Colton, constituting said Board of County Commissioners Respondents.

No. 3990.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

Dec. 24, 1957.

Zenoff, Magleby & Manzonie, Las Vegas, for appellant.

George M. Dickerson, Dist. Atty., Las Vegas, for respondents.

BADT, Chief Justice.

Is the following description of a tract of land within the city limits of Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada, sufficient to support tax proceedings culminating in a deed to Clark County on account of delinquent taxes: 'Part SW 1/4 Sec. 35-20-61 .86A District L.V. City Limits', reciting further the taxpayer's name as 'Provenzano, Bernard V. and Pearl V., Box 934, Las Vegas, Nevada'?

We hold that it is not.

The actual description of the property is a metes and bounds description approximately 300 words in length, describing an irregular tract 200 feet by 125 feet by 300 feet by 125 feet, paralleling on one side the north line of Fremont Street and on one side the east line of Fifteenth Street and locating the property in the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 35, Township 20 S., Range 61 E., M.D.B. & M.

The learned trial judge and counsel for the respondents both recognize the rule that a tax sale, to be valid, must contain an adequate description of the property through all stages of the proceedings. Jackson v. Harris, 64 Nev. 339, 183 P.2d 161, 168. Respondents dispose of that case because of this court's statement in the opinion that: 'Each case presents, of course, a distinct fact situation, and each separate description must be considered to determine its sufficiency.' That statement was made following our quotation of the general rule appearing at 67 A.L.R. 890, which considered 'well over a hundred cases' in which tax sales were held to be void for insufficiency of the desciption in the notice of sale. The rule we there quoted was: 'The general rule is that the description of property in a notice of tax sale must be sufficiently definite and certain to make the land attempted to be described capable of identification, and an insufficient description in such a notice will render the tax sale certificate and the tax deed based thereon void.' Id. 64 Nev. 353, 183 P.2d 168. The statement that each separate description must be considered to determine its sufficiency strengthens rather than weakens the force of Jackson v. Harris as authority when, as below demonstrated the description there involved was even more adequate than the one in question here.

Respondent also attempts to support the position of the court below, which, in disposing of Jackson v. Harris, was of the opinion that the rule of that case 'should not be extended to cover the situation presented by the present case where the description of the property could not and did not mislead the owner as to what property was involved'. This, it is true, amounted to a finding of fact rejecting the explanation made by appellant that he believed from the description given by the county officials that the parcel in question was a parcel of land formerly owned by his former wife, from whom he was divorced in 1950, and whose property was described by legal subdivisions.

Neither of the above contentions can remove Jackson v. Harris from its control of the instant case. It is true that several of the general rules for determining the sufficiency of the description as used by the courts and the text writers refer to descriptions that do not positively mislead the taxpayer or are not calculated to mislead him or descriptions which identify the particular property so clearly that the owner cannot be misled. In referring to those rules in Jackson v. Harris we referred to many other statements of the rule to be followed. We did not adopt any of them. We called attention to the fact that many of such rules were stated far more broadly than warranted by the facts in the cases...