Robertson v. Commissioner of State Land Office
| Decision Date | 06 October 1880 |
| Citation | 44 Mich. 274,6 N.W. 659 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | ROBERTSON ex rel. v. COMMISSIONER OF STATE LAND OFFICE. |
Upon certificates of purchase of state swamp lands, issued in 1853, the state cannot, upon final payment of the purchase price being made, insist, as a condition of the issuing of a deed, that the taxes on the land be also paid.
Mandamus.
W.A. Underwood, for relator.
Otto Kirchner, Att'y Gen., for respondent.
The relator is assignee of Addison P. Cook to the ownership of certain certificates of purchase of state swamp lands in the county of Lenawee, which were issued in the year 1853, and by the terms of which said Cook was to pay one-fourth the purchase price down, and the balance, with interest, at any time thereafter, at the option of the purchaser. The one-fourth was paid when the certificates were issued, and the remainder June 10, 1879. The certificates were assigned to the relator in 1878, and the final payments were made by him. At that time he demanded of the respondent a certificate that the whole of the principal and interest had been paid and that he was entitled to a deed from the state; but the commissioner refused to give one, because the taxes levied in respect to said lands from the time of their purchase remained unpaid, but offered to give one when payment was made. The only question the record presents is whether the land commissioner was entitled by law to require the payment of taxes as a condition precedent to the issue of the certificate demanded of him.
1. In 1853, when the lands were sold by the state, there was no provision of law for the taxation of state lands which had been sold and partly paid for, but not conveyed. It is therefore, claimed that it was not competent for the state to tax such lands; that the sale was a contract between the state and the purchaser; that the lands should be conveyed to him on the sole condition of the purchase price being paid and that any provision of statute imposing the new condition that the tax should be first paid, was a provision impairing the obligation of contracts, and therefore void. It is to be observed, however, that the certificate of sale by the state contains no stipulation or promise that the land, or the interest of the purchaser therein, shall not be taxed. Neither does the land under which the certificate was issued contain or imply such a promise; it is merely silent on the subject. But the interest acquired by the purchaser becomes thereby a part of the individual property of the purchaser, and is as much subject to the taxing power of the state as any other item of individual property within its limits. No property is beyond the reach of that power unless put beyond it designedly and by an unequivocal act of the sovereign power. Christ Church v. Philadelphia, 24 How. 302; Gilman v Sheboygan, 2 Black, 513. Merely refraining from the exercise of the power, though it may raise well-founded expectations that the exemption will be permanent, is not sufficient; for this is a mere favor, which may be recalled at any time without any violation of the public faith. East Saginaw, etc., Co. v. East Saginaw, 19 Mich. 259; S.C. in error, 13 Wall. 373. And if the revenue law in force at the time is not sufficient to reach the case, it may be made so whenever the state shall choose. The power is undoubted and ample.
2. Is the legislation which has been passed for the taxing of these lands sufficient to accomplish the purpose? Provisions for this purpose were introduced in the general tax law of 1853. The eleventh section of this act provided that "any person holding a certificate or purchase of university or primary school lands, or occupying the same, shall be liable to be assessed therefor as if he were the actual owner thereof: provided, however, that the same shall be assessed as personal property, and not as real estate, and the tax thereon shall be collected in the manner hereinafter provided." Comp.Laws,� 792. This section was extended so as to include swamp lands in 1858. Sess.Laws 1858, p. 193. Making these interests taxable as personal property brings some incongruities into the law, for the state apparently contemplates that each tax payer personally assessed shall be charged at the place of his residence with one aggregate sum, which shall be collected of his goods and chattels. Comp.Laws, 1857, �� 802, 821, 822. If such interests were taxed under these general provisions, they could only be taxed where the owner resided, and the general valuation of his personalty in one gross sum must be held presumptively to include them. But the subsequent provisions of the tax law of 1853 show that this was not the method in the legislative mind.
The supervisor of any township to which such an interest might be assessed was required, even before the first day of November, to transmit to the county treasurer a list of the lands, with the names of the persons to whom the same were assessed. The county treasurer was to return a like list to the auditor general when the taxes failed of collection, and the purchaser must, under penalty of forfeiting his interest in such lands, and in the certificate of sale thereof, within the time in which the annual interest was required to be paid on the purchase money, pay to the state treasurer the amount of the taxes, with 15 per cent. interest from the first day of February, and 25 cents for expenses. The lands forfeited were then subject to sale in the same manner that other forfeited and unsold university and primary school lands are. Comp.Laws 1857, �� 935-939.
Taking these sections together they evidently contemplate that though the interests of the purchasers of part of said state lands...
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