Sanders v. Yellowstone County

• Decision Date: 16 April 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-408,95-408
• Citation: 276 Mont. 116,915 P.2d 196
• Parties: Jeffrey SANDERS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. YELLOWSTONE COUNTY (a Political Subdivision of the State of Montana) and Gaugers Sales Corp. (a Montana corporation), Defendants and Respondents. GAUGERS SALES CORP. (a Montana corporation), Cross-Plaintiff, v. Jeffrey SANDERS, Cross-Defendant. GAUGERS SALES CORP. (a Montana corporation), Cross-Plaintiff, v. YELLOWSTONE COUNTY (a political Subdivision of the State of Montana), Cross-Defendant.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

Page 196

915 P.2d 196

276 Mont. 116

Jeffrey SANDERS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. YELLOWSTONE COUNTY (a Political Subdivision of the State of

Montana) and Gaugers Sales Corp. (a Montana

corporation), Defendants and Respondents.

GAUGERS SALES CORP. (a Montana corporation), Cross-Plaintiff, v. Jeffrey SANDERS, Cross-Defendant.

GAUGERS SALES CORP. (a Montana corporation), Cross-Plaintiff, v. YELLOWSTONE COUNTY (a political Subdivision of the State of

Montana), Cross-Defendant.

No. 95-408.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted on Briefs March 7, 1996.

Decided April 16, 1996.

Appeal from District Court of the Thirteenth Judicial District, In and for the County of Yellowstone; The Honorable Diane G. Barz, Judge Presiding.

Peter T. Stanley, Billings, for Appellant.

Dennis Paxinos, County Attorney; Brent Brooks, Deputy County Attorney, Billings, Carol Hardy, Pedersen & Hardy, Billings, for Respondent.

TURNAGE, Chief Justice.

Jeffrey Sanders (Sanders) appeals from the decision of the Thirteenth Judicial District Court, Yellowstone County, granting Gaugers Sales Corp.'s (Gaugers) and Yellowstone County's motions for summary judgment in this quiet title action. We reverse.

We find the following issues dispositive on appeal:

1. Did Sanders have standing to institute this quiet title action?

2. Did the Yellowstone County Treasurer have jurisdiction to issue a tax deed on August 3, 1992, to Yellowstone County for Lot 7C, Block 8 in Emerald Hills Subdivision?

The subject property was sold by Emerald Hills Development Company (EHDC) on a 1977 contract for deed. The buyers thereafter in 1979 assigned their interest in the contract to Thomas E. Hannah and others. The contract has never been terminated. In 1980, EHDC quitclaimed its interest in the property, subject to the Thomas E. Hannah buyer's interest in the 1977 contract, to Kenneth and Mary McKenzie. Following a series of additional conveyances, the EHDC interest was conveyed in April of 1993 to appellant Jeffrey Sanders.

In 1989 Yellowstone County received a Tax Sale Certificate to the subject property. On August 3, 1992, the Yellowstone County Treasurer issued a tax deed for the property to Yellowstone County. On December 9, 1992, Yellowstone County sold the property on contract to Gaugers.

In April of 1993, as stated above, appellant Jeffrey Sanders by conveyance received title to the property subject to the interest of Thomas E. Hannah under the 1979 assignment of the contract for deed. On November 30, 1993, Sanders instituted this quiet title action, arguing that the Yellowstone County Treasurer was without jurisdiction to issue the tax deed to Yellowstone County because the notice requirements of §§ 15-18-111 and -212, MCA, had not been met. Gaugers subsequently acquired and recorded a quitclaim deed from Thomas E. Hannah.

Yellowstone County properly notified Sanders' predecessor in interest of the pending issuance of a tax deed. Yellowstone County did not notify Thomas E. Hannah of its intent to issue a tax deed. The published notice likewise did not list Thomas E. Hannah as an interested party. It is undisputed that, at the time notice was given, Thomas E. Hannah was an interested party as defined in § 15-18-111, MCA, and was entitled to notice under § 15-18-212, MCA.

The case was submitted to the District Court on cross-motions for summary judgment. The court granted Yellowstone County's and Gaugers' motions for summary judgment and denied Sanders' motion for summary judgment. The court's decision was based on Sanders' lack of standing to challenge the issuance of the tax deed.

Issue 1

Did Sanders have standing to institute this quiet title action?

Section 70-28-101, MCA, provides that a quiet title action may be brought

by any person or persons, whether in actual possession or not, claiming title to real estate against any person or persons, both known and unknown, who claim or may claim any right, title, estate, or interest therein or lien or encumbrance thereon adverse to plaintiff's ownership or any cloud upon plaintiff's title thereto, whether such claim or possible claim be present or contingent, including any claim or possible claim of dower, inchoate or accrued, for the purpose of determining such claim or possible claim and quieting the title to said real estate.

Sanders meets the criteria set forth in this section, as he is a person claiming title to real estate against another person (Gaugers) who claims an interest adverse to his own. Sanders alleges, in essence, that Gaugers' adverse claim of title was acquired via tax deed proceedings which were defective and which, as a result, divested the Yellowstone County Treasurer of jurisdiction to issue the tax deed.

In addition to being a party entitled to bring a quiet title action, however, Sanders must establish standing to challenge the tax deed proceeding. This Court has determined that the following criteria must be satisfied to establish standing:

(1) The complaining party must clearly allege past, present or threatened injury to a property or civil right; and (2) the alleged injury must be distinguishable from the injury to the public generally, but the injury need not be exclusive to the complaining party.

Stewart v. Bd. of Cty. Com'rs of Big Horn Cty. (1977), 175 Mont. 197, 201, 573 P.2d 184, 186.

In this quiet title action, Sanders has alleged a present injury to a property right. Sanders maintains that Gaugers' asserted interest, allegedly acquired via defective proceedings which rendered Gaugers' tax deed void, is a cloud on his title. This allegation is clearly personal to himself, as opposed to an injury to the public in general. See Stewart, 573 P.2d at 186. Thus, Sanders meets the standing criteria.

Contrary to the allegations raised in the dissent, no Montana statute or case law requires Sanders to have an interest in the subject property at the time of the issuance of the tax deed in order to institute a quiet title action. The cases cited by the dissent are clearly distinguishable in that Utah's statutory scheme provides a clearly defined statute of limitations. The dissent's concern over the lack of finality in tax deed cases is well taken; however, it is not the role of this Court to create such finality absent specific statutory authority.

Although Sanders did not have an interest in the property when the treasurer issued the tax deed, he later received a quit claim deed to the property. It is this purported interest Sanders now seeks to protect.

We note that the application of the Stewart standing criteria in this case produces a different result on the standing issue than we reached in Bowen v. McDonald (Mont.1995), --- Mont. ----, --- P.2d ----, 53 St.Rep. ---- (Cause No. 95-193, decided April 16, 1996). The difference arises from the different natures of the two actions--in Bowen, the sole basis for standing was the claimed statutory right to redeem; here, the basis for standing is the quiet title statute, § 70-28-101, MCA. We hold that the District Court erred in concluding that Sanders lacked standing to institute this quiet title action.

Issue 2

Did the Yellowstone County Treasurer have jurisdiction to issue a tax deed on August 3, 1992, to Yellowstone County for Lot 7C, Block 8 in Emerald Hills Subdivision?

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment using the same standard utilized by the district court. Summary judgment is proper only when no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rule 56(c), M.R.Civ.P.; Bruner v. Yellowstone County (1995), 272 Mont. 261, 264, 900 P.2d 901, 903.

Sanders argues that the Yellowstone County Treasurer did not have jurisdiction to issue the tax deed. The parties in their Statement of Agreed Facts (SAF) agreed that Thomas E. Hannah was an interested party, entitled to notice prior to the issuance of the tax deed. The parties in their SAF agreed that Yellowstone County failed to notify Thomas E. Hannah. Sanders argues that because Yellowstone County failed to notify Thomas E. Hannah of the impending issuance of the tax deed, the treasurer was without jurisdiction to issue a tax deed.

The notice requirements prior to the issuance of a tax deed, § 15-18-212, MCA, state:

(1) Not more than 60 days prior to and not more than 60 days following the expiration of the redemption period provided in 15-18-111, a notice must be given as follows:

(a) for each property for which there has been issued to the county a tax sale certificate or for which the county is otherwise listed as the purchaser or assignee, the county clerk shall notify all persons considered interested parties in the property and the current occupant of the property, if any, that a tax deed may be issued to the county unless the property tax lien is redeemed prior to the expiration date of the redemption period....

....

(4) The notice required under subsections (1) and (2) must be made by certified mail, return receipt requested, to each interested party and the current occupant, if any, of the property. The address to which the notice must be sent is, for each interested party, the address disclosed by the records in the office of the county clerk and, for the occupant, the street address or other known address of the subject property.

Subsection (5) sets forth the specific publication requirements when the address of the interested party is not known. Section 15-18-212(5), MCA.

Section 15-18-111(3), MCA, defines "interested party" for use in this part, as any

mortgagee, vendor of a contract for deed or the vendor's successor in interest, lienholder, or other person who has a properly recorded interest in the property.

Thomas E. Hannah was an assignee of the 1977 contract for deed to the property and was an interested party under this section. Yellowstone County and Gaugers agreed that Thomas E. Hannah was an interested party in the SAF. Statement of Agreed Fact No. 18 reads...