Saranac Land & Timber Co. v. Roberts

• Decision Date: 29 April 1913
• Citation: 101 N.E. 898,208 N.Y. 288
• Parties: SARANAC LAND & TIMBER CO. v. ROBERTS, State Comptroller (two cases).
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

208 N.Y. 288

101 N.E. 898

SARANAC LAND & TIMBER CO.

v.ROBERTS, State Comptroller (two cases).

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 29, 1913.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department.

Actions by the Saranac Land & Timber Company against James A. Roberts, as Comptroller of the State of New York. From judgments of the Appellate Division (152 App. Div. 918,137 N. Y . Supp. 1141, 1142), and from judgments in favor of plaintiff, entered on the report of a referee, the Comptroller appeals. Reversed, and new trial granted.Thomas Carmody, Atty. Gen. (Edward R. O'Malley, of Buffalo, of counsel), for appellant.

Frank E. Smith and Thomas F. Conway, both of New York City, for respondent.

MILLER, J.

These are two actions in ejectment, designated as Nos. 1 and 2, begun in 1895, involving the title, respectively, to the N. W . 1/4 of township 24, Harrietstown, Franklin county, and to the W. 1/2 of the N. E. 1/4 of said township. A similar action, involving the title to the N. W. 1/4, was brought by the plaintiff in the United State Circuit Court for the Northern District of New York in 1895. That action was tried, a judgment was rendered for the defendant and was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. Saranac Land & Timber Company v. Roberts, 177 U. S. 318, 20 Sup. Ct. 642, 44 L. Ed. 786. The plaintiff thereupon paid up the costs and took an order setting aside the judgment and granting a new trial. Thereafter action No. 2 in the state court was brought on for trial, and a judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff, which was affirmed by the Appellate Division and by this court. 125 App. Div. 335,109 N. Y. Supp. 547; 195 N. Y. 303, 88 N. E. 753. The state thereupon paid up the costs and took a new trial pursuant to the statute then in force. Both actions, Nos. 1 and 2, were then tried together before a referee, and the judgments in favor of the plaintiff entered upon his decision have been unanimously affirmed by the Appellate Division.

The defendant now attacks the plaintiff's title, but we shall assume that, but for the tax title of the state under the sale of 1877 for the aggregate highway, town, county, and state taxes for the years 1866 to 1870, inclusive, and the school taxes of 1869 and 1870, the plaintiff would have good title to the lands in controversy and shall confine our discussion to the objections raised to the state's title. Those objections, with slight differences to be noticed later, are the same in both actions and depend for their validity upon substantially the same fundamental principles of law. To save repetition, I shall consider the two together.

[1] The effect of our decision on the former appeal is first to be considered, because, while the judgment then renderedis not resadjudicata, the defendant being entitled as a matter of right to another trial, the rule of stare decisis applies with peculiar force to that decision.

[2] A single objection to the state's title was considered on that appeal; i. e., the objection that the tax sale was in part for school taxes assessed by the trustees of school district No. 2 in the town of Harrietstown for the years 1869 and 1870 upon lands which were outside the school district. Of course such an assessment was void. The fact is found, as it was before, that land so assessed was outside the district, and the question which survives the unanimous affirmance of the Appellate Division is presented by the exception to the admission of the evidence upon which that finding was based. We are of the opinion that there has been a substantial change in the record which presents that question in an entirely different light. The evidence upon the former trial to establish the boundaries of said school district consisted of pages 107 and 108 of a book of town records. Those two pages were offered in evidence and were printed in the record on appeal as a single document, and, as thus offered and printed, they purported to constitute the record made by the town clerk on the 29th of April, 1862, of a single order made and signed by the school commissioner, defining the boundaries of districts Nos. 2 and 3 of said town of Harrietstown. While the defendant objected to the admission of the document in evidence, it did not argue the exception to the ruling in this court, but, on the contrary, conceded that there was some evidence, and that the book of records indicated, that about the year 1862 an attempt was made by the official upon whom the duty devolved to make the limits of the district coincide with a ‘three mile circle,’ while, as is conceded, would have excluded most of the land assessed.

[3] The argument of the Attorney General was that, although the boundaries of the district had thus been defined in 1862, there was a presumption from the fact of the levying of the taxes by the school trustees in 1869 and 1870 that an order had been made by the school commissioner, subsequent to the order of 1862, changing the boundaries of the district so as to include the land assessed. Judge Gray, writing for this court, effectually disposed of that argument by observing that: ‘In the absence of such a record, or of competent proof aliunde, establishing the making of such a change, it will not do to indulge in presumptions that such a change had been ordered, to make available the permissive terms of the amending statute.’ Saranac L. & T. Co. v. Roberts, 195 N. Y. 303, 310,88 N. E. 753, 756.

[4] The important question argued by the state related to the construction and effect of chapter 448 of the Laws of 1885, and the point finally determined by this court was that the short limitation period prescribed by that act was not set running as to actions by a landowner to dispossess the state of lands acquired through tax sales until the comptroller was deemed to be in possession thereof by reason of the advertisement of such lands pursuant to chapter 453 of the Laws of 1885. Judge Gray pointed out that the decision of the United States Supreme Court hereinbefore referred to was based on an erroneous assumption as to the construction and effect of the six months' limitation clause of said chapter 448 and was not stare decisis.

[5] The decision of this court on the former appeal should not be regarded as stare decisis, if it was based on the erroneous assumption of fact that an order was made by the school commissioner in 1862, defining the bounds of said school district so as not to include a part of the land assessed. The state should not be prejudiced on a new trial, to which it was entitled as a matter of right, or be deprived of its land, by the fact that evidence was admitted on the former trial and printed in the record on appeal in such a way as not fairly to present the question involved.

Even on this trial the learned counsel for the respondentoffered pages 107 and 108 of the town record as one document, and insisted that they constituted the record of a single order made by the school commissioner. The two pages, however, were received as separate documents. Facsimiles of them are printed in the record, and the original book was submitted for our inspection. Page 108 purports to be the record of an order made April 29, 1862, by the school commissioner, defining the bounds of school district No. 3, Harrietstown. It is entitled, ‘In the matter of defining and describing the bounds of school district No. 3, of the town of Harrietstown, in the county of Franklin,’ and then proceeds: ‘It is ordered by the undersigned school commissioner,’ ect. The record is attested by Van B. Miller, town clerk. The writing on the preceding page 107 is entitled: ‘In the matter of defining and describing the bounds of school district No. 2, in the town of Harrietstown, in the county of Franklin.’ But it does not purport to be the record of the whole or any part of an order made by the school commissioner. After the title it proceeds thus: ‘The bounds of said district are as follows.’ Then follows on the first half of the page a description dated, ‘Oct. 5th/68,’ and signed, ‘Van Buren Miller, Supervisor.’ Diagonal lines, commencing below the words, ‘The bounds of the said district are as follows,’ are drawn through that description, and, following the signature and on the last half of the page is another description dated, ‘Oct. 5th/68,’ and signed, ‘Van Buren Miller.’ The referee found that Van Buren Miller was town clerk in 1862, justice of the peace in 1867, and supervisor in 1868; that James Fillbrook was town clerk in 1868; that page 107 was written by Van Buren Miller in 1868, and that page 108 was written by him in 1862; that said pages did not constitute in any sense the same instrument; and that page 107 is not a copy of an order signed by any school commissioner, and does not in its form purport to be an order establishing or defining school district bounds, and that the writing on page 107 is not attested by the town clerk and was not written by him. Those findings and the exception to the admission in evidence of page 107 present a question not involved on the former appeal.

[6] Chapter 555 of the Laws of 1864 was a revision and consolidation of the general acts relating to public instruction . By it it was made the duty of the school commissioner to divide his district, so far as practicable, into a convenient number of school districts, to describe and number the school districts and joint districts, and to deliver in writing to the town clerk the description and number of each district lying in whole or in part in his town, and from time to time to inquire and ascertain whether the boundaries within his districts were definitely and plainly described in the records of the proper town clerks. It was made the duty of the town clerk to receive, file, and record the descriptions of the school districts and neighborhoods and all papers and proceedings delivered to him by the school commissioner. The record of school district boundaries...