Raynsford v. Phelps
| Decision Date | 21 April 1880 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | RAYNSFORD v. PHELPS. |
Where a tax collector falsely returned that there was no personal property upon certain land, by reason of which the tax became a lien thereon, and a mortgagee was obliged to redeem from the tax sale, held, that he might maintain an action against the officer for the money so obliged to be paid by him.
Error to Kent.
C.G. & W.W. Hyde, for plaintiff in error.
Simonds & Fletcher, for defendant in error.
It was decided in Royoming v. Goodchild, 2 W.Bl. 906, that a public officer having ministerial duties to perform, in which a private individual has a special and direct interest in liable to such individual for any injury sustained by him in consequence of the failure to perform such duties. It was an officer connected with the postal service who was held liable in that case, and the decision is followed in this country. Teal v. Filton, 1 N.Y. 537; S.C. in error 12 How. 284. Election officers have been held liable on the same ground, (Ashby v. White, Lord Raym. 938; 1 Salk. 19; Lincoln v. Hapgood, 11 Mass. 350; Jeffries v. Ankeny, 11 Ohio, 372;) and so have commissioners of highways; (Hover v. Barkhoof, 44 N.Y. 113; Hathaway v. Hinton, 1 Jones, N.C. 243;) and so have inspectors of provisions, (Hayes v Porter, 22 Me. 371; Mickerson v. Thompson, 33 Me. 433; Tardes v. Bozant, 1 La.Ann. 199;) and so have tax and other officers, (Army v Supervisors, 11 Wall. 136; Tracy v. Swartwout, 10 Pet. 80; Brown v. Lester, 21 Miss. 392; Bolan v. Williamson, 1 Brev. 181.) It is immaterial that the duty is one primarily imposed on public grounds, and, therefore, primarily a duty owing to the public. The right of action springs from the fact that the private individual receives a special and peculiar injury from the neglect in performance, which it was in part the purpose of the law to protect him against.
It is also immaterial that a failure in performance is made by the law a penal offence. Hayes v. Porter, 22 Me. 371. The exceptions are of those cases in which the functions of the office are judicial, or partake of the judicial. Sage v. Laurain, 19 Mich. 137; Goelchens v. Mattheroson, 61 N.Y. 420; Bevard v. Hoffman, 18 Md. 479; Harrington v. Commissioners, etc., 2 McCord, 400. But even in these cases the officer is responsible if he acts maliciously. Gordon v. Farran, 2 Doug. (Mich.) 411; Bennett v. Fulmer, 49 Pa. 82, 157; Gregory v. Brooks, 37 Conn. 365; Stichfadden v. Lipprick, 49 Ill. 286.
The principle is as familiar as it is sound. It is, nevertheless, insisted that the present case is not within it. Tax collectors, it is truly said, are chosen because the machinery of government must be kept in motion, and to that end it is essential that the public revenue should be collected. They are chosen, therefore, and their duties imposed on public grounds, not on private. If, through any negligence on the collector's part, the state loses a portion of its dues, the officer is responsible to the state for the loss; but it is denied that he owes any duty to individuals, except to abstain, as every citizen must, from committing trespasses on their rights. The question of negligence, in the performance of public duties, must always concern the public good.
But, conceding that the law creates the office of collector in order that public revenues may be collected, it does not follow that it leaves that officer at liberty to disregard private interests in their collection. When the law prescribes who shall be liable for the payment of taxes, and whose property may be levied upon therefor, it at the same time, by implication, forbids the officer to seize upon the property of others, or, by act or omission, make the tax a charge upon such property. The implied prohibition creates a duty in favor of the person whose property is the subject of it, and he is at liberty to buy and sell in reliance upon the duty being performed. He has a right to understand that the officer is commissioned by the law to act only with due respect to the rights of individuals, and that if he acts otherwise and causes special injury, he disobeys his commission, and is not within the protection the commission might otherwise give.
The plaintiff owned a mortgage on lands on which a tax was assessed for the year 1874. A warrant was issued for the collection of this tax, and was placed in the hands of defendant for service. The plaintiff's case is that during the life of this warrant, and while the defendant held it, there was personal property upon the land, belonging to one French, who had purchased the equity of redemption after the first Monday of May, and before the first Monday of December, of that year, from which...
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