Rutledge v. State

• Citation: 292 S.W. 164
• Decision Date: 09 March 1927
• Docket Number: (No. 938-4733.)
• Parties: RUTLEDGE et al. (LEMOND et al.) v. STATE for Use and Benefit of ELLIS COUNTY LEVEE IMPROVEMENT DIST. NO. 3.
• Court: Supreme Court of Texas

292 S.W. 164

RUTLEDGE et al. (LEMOND et al.) v. STATE for Use and Benefit of ELLIS COUNTY LEVEE IMPROVEMENT DIST. NO. 3.

(No. 938-4733.)

Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section A.

March 9, 1927.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Fifth Supreme Judicial District.

Suit by the State of Texas, for use and benefit of Ellis County Levee Improvement District No. 3, against W. J. Rutledge, Jr., and others. Judgment for defendants was reversed by the Court of Civil Appeals (287 S. W. 302), and defendants bring error. Judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals reversed and that of the district court affirmed.

I. M. Williams, Dwight L. Simmons, and Thompson, Knight, Baker & Harris, all of Dallas, and C. M. Supple, of Waxahachie, for plaintiffs in error.

W. P. Dumas, of Dallas, Tom J. Ball, of Waxahachie, and Goree, Odell & Allen, of Fort Worth, for defendant in error.

BISHOP, J.

The statement of this case and the question here presented are as shown by the Court of Civil Appeals in its opinion as follows:

"This suit was brought in the name of the state pro forma for the use and benefit of Ellis county levee improvement district No. 3, against appellees, to enforce collection of delinquent taxes for the years 1919-1921, inclusive, regularly levied on and assessed against 292.2 acres of land situated within the district.

"The defense urged was that the claim for taxes due for the years 1919 and 1920 was barred by the two-year statute of limitation. On trial before the court without a jury, the plea of limitation was sustained and appellant was denied a recovery for the taxes delinquent for the years 1919 and 1920.

"Only one question is presented for our consideration, that is: Did the general statute of two-year limitation operate against appellant so as to bar a recovery for the taxes for the two years mentioned?

"Ellis county improvement district No. 3 was organized under and is controlled by the provisions of chapter 146, General Laws of the Thirty-Fourth Legislature, page 229 et seq., approved April 1, 1915, and known as the Canales Act.

"In regard to the assessment and collection of taxes the act provides:

"Section 34. `It shall be the duty of the tax collector to make a certified list of all delinquent property, upon which the improvement taxes have not been paid, and return the same to the county commissioner's court, and said court shall proceed to have said taxes collected by sale by the collector or by suit, in the same manner as now provided for the collection of delinquent state and county taxes. * * *'

"Sec. 36. `All taxes levied or authorized to be levied by this act shall be payable and shall mature and become delinquent as is provided by the laws of this state, for state and county taxes, and, upon the failure to pay such taxes when due, the same penalties shall accrue and be collected as are provided by the laws of the state of Texas for the nonpayment of state and county taxes. All taxes shall be a lien upon the property against which such taxes are assessed. In the assessment and collection of the taxes levied or authorized to be levied by this act, the assessor and collector of taxes shall, respectively, have the same powers and shall be governed by the same rules and regulations as are provided by the laws of the state of Texas for the assessment and collection of state and county taxes, unless herein otherwise provided.'"

Article 7662, Revised Civil Statutes 1911 (article 7298, Revised Civil Statutes 1925), is:

"No delinquent taxpayer shall...