Silcott v. McCarty

• Decision Date: 05 December 1883
• Citation: 62 Iowa 161,17 N.W. 460
• Parties: SILCOTT v. MCCARTY.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

62 Iowa 161

17 N.W. 460

SILCOTT

v.MCCARTY.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed December 5, 1883.

Appeal from Warren circuit court.

Action to recover upon the warranty of a deed for land. The cause was tried to a jury and a verdict rendered for plaintiff, under direction of the court, and judgment accordingly. Defendant appeals. The facts of the case appear in the opinion.Todhunter & Hartman, for appellant.

H. McNeil, for appellee.

BECK, J.

1. The plaintiff seeks to recover, upon the warranty of deed executed to him by defendant, the amount paid by him to redeem the land from a tax sale. The point in controversy between the parties involves the validity of the sale of the lands for personal taxes levied upon the property of a copartnership,--the land being assessed to one of the partners,--and the tax against the partnership property being transferred to the partner to whom the land was assessed, and who, as the pleadings show, owned it. We gather from the very obscure abstracts, and the equally obscure statement of facts made by the respective parties, that the land was probably sold at the same sale, as well for taxes levied upon it as for the personal property tax of the copartnership; and that probably the defendant, after acquiring a title to the land by sheriff's sale, paid the amount due upon the sale arising from the tax on the land itself, or, in other words, redeemed from the tax sale so far as to pay the personal tax, with interest, penalty, and costs assessed against the land. But these doubtful matters do not control the decision of the case, and we give ourselves no concern about them.

2. Defendant contends, as we understand him, that this personal tax was not upon the tax-book against the land at the time of the sale, claiming that it appears in the tax-books to be among the taxes of a township other than the one in which the land was assessed. In other words, the personal property tax was found in the tax-list for Washington township, while the real estate tax was in the list for White Oak township. The amended abstract filed by plaintiff, which is not denied, and therefore must be taken as true, shows that the tax-book of White Oak township exhibits the sale of the land for the amount of the personal tax. It is evident that the personal property tax was upon the tax-list of that township. When, by whom, or how it was placed there does not appear. We must presume, in the absence of any showing to the contrary, that it was...