Sawyer v. MaCkie
| Decision Date | 11 May 1889 |
| Citation | 21 N.E. 307,149 Mass. 269 |
| Parties | SAWYER v. MACKIE. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
John P. Treadwell and Eugene B. Hagar, for demandant.
R. Lund and M.J. Creed, for tenant.
Our statute provides that Pub.St. c. 11, § 13. The natural and obvious meaning of the word "person" is a living human being. When the statutes speak of a person who has died, they speak of him as a "person deceased," or a "deceased person." A dead man cannot be the owner of property. We see no reason to suppose that the statute above cited intends to use the words "persons" and "owners" in any other than their usual sense. The clause first cited was designed to meet the cases where real estate has been conveyed by deeds which are not recorded before the first day of May. The subsequent sections of the statute make provision for assessing the estates of persons who have died before the 1st of May. Pub.St. c. 11, §§ 18, 19. Undoubtedly it will sometimes happen that the assessors will fail to receive information of the death of a former owner of real estate, but the statutes provide for such a contingency by giving them the right to reassess the taxes to the person who is taxable. Id. §§ 79, 80. We are therefore of opinion that the assessments of the taxes upon the premises in question for the years 1884 and 1885 to John O. Bradford, who died in 1879, were illegal, and that the superior court rightly directed a verdict for the tenant. Exceptions overruled.
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