Richter v. Beaumont

• Decision Date: 03 March 1890
• Citation: 67 Miss. 285,7 So. 357
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: GEORGE RICHTER v. B. BEAUMONT

7 So. 357

67 Miss. 285

GEORGE RICHTER v. B. BEAUMONT

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 3, 1890

FROM the circuit court of Wilkinson county, HON. RALPH NORTH Judge.

Ejectment by appellee against appellant. The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion. On the trial the plaintiff introduced the deed of the tax-collector to E. H. Beaumont, and from the latter to himself and rested. The defendant offered the evidence as shown in the opinion all of which was upon the motion of plaintiff, excluded.

The plaintiff had verdict and judgment, and the defendant appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

A. G Shannon, for appellant.

The evidence excluded from the jury tended to show an honest effort to pay the taxes on the land for the year 1883, and an actual payment on its valuation under an assessment and description sufficient to prevent its forfeiture for that year. Dodds v. Marx, 63 Miss. 443.

D. C Bramlett, for appellee.

I do not understand that an honest effort to pay taxes, even if a sufficient amount is tendered, is sufficient to discharge the taxes, unless payment is actually made on the identical land assessed. There is no pretence of payment of taxes on lot 7, as assessed, but an effort to show payment on a part thereof by payment of taxes on a different and distinct lot. The assessment roll of 1883, shows the assessment of lots 6 and 7 separately, and the plat of square 2 containing these lots is shown from corporation maps recognized before 1887, and it is only from this that the assessment of 1883, could have been made. No tax receipt is offered showing any payment on lot 7, and no receipt save one distinctly specifying laud as it is described on the assessment roll, shall be valid evidence of payment of taxes. Code 1880, § 516.

OPINION

CAMPBELL, J.

The land sued for as part of lot 7, in a certain square in Woodville, was assessed in 1883, and in 1884 lot 7 was sold for taxes. For several years prior to 1883, a map of Woodville was recognized by the citizens and officials of the town, and the county assessors as the map of the town, but this map was never adopted by an order of the board of aldermen until 1887. By the ancient division of the town and designation of lots, lot six embraced the parcel of land sued for in this action, which parcel is, by the modern map, a part of lot seven. The defendant [appellant], was in 1883 and prior and subsequent thereto, in the actual possession of lot six, and he gave the description of his land to the assessor as lot...