Skowhegan Sav. Bank v. Parsons

• Decision Date: 10 August 1894
• Citation: 86 Me. 514,30 A. 110
• Parties: SKOWHEGAN SAV. BANK v. PARSONS et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

30 A. 110

86 Me. 514

SKOWHEGAN SAV. BANK

v. PARSONS et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Aug. 10, 1894.

(Official.)

Exceptions from supreme Judicial court Somerset county.

Action quare clausum by the Skowhegan Savings Bank against Samuel A. Parsons and Oliver Moulton. Defendants justified under tax deeds to defendant Moulton. The action was tried to referees, who made a report in the alternative, based on the validity of the deeds. The court held that the deeds were insufficient to pass title, and defendants except Exceptions overruled.

Walton & Walton, for plaintiff.

J. J. Parlin and S. S. Brown, for defendants.

STROUT, J. By the alternative award in this case, the referees submit to the court the question whether the two tax deeds from George L. Beal, state treasurer, to Oliver Moulton, one of defendants, conveyed to Moulton title to the land described in plaintiff's writ To obtain forfeiture of land for unpaid taxes, the provisions of the statute to that end must be strictly complied with.

The Revised Statutes (chapter 6, § 76) provide that the treasurer of state shall record his doings in every sale of land forfeited for nonpayment of taxes, "and a certified copy of such record shall be prima facie evidence in any court of the facts therein set forth." The case does not show any such copy of the record. The recitals in the deeds are not evidence of the facts. Phillips v. Sherman, 61 Me. 551; Libby v. Mayberry, 80 Me. 138, 13 Atl. 577. If they were, there is nothing in the deeds to show for what year the taxes were assessed, nor whether the taxes were assessed by the county commissioners, as provided in section 70 of the same chapter, or by the legislature, as provided in section 71, nor that the notice of sale was published in a newspaper "printed" in the county in which the lands lie, as required by section 73, nor when or in what paper it was published. These are fatal defects. Ladd v. Dickey, 84 Me. 194, 24 Atl. 813.

The description in one of the deeds Is "9,098 acres in 2 R. 2 W. K. R. Highland;" and in the other, "12,093 acres in 2 R. 2 W. K. R." Where is this land? What do these figures and initials mean? There is nothing in the case to explain their meaning. Such description is insufficient to convey title. Griffin v. Creppen, 60 Me. 270.

The declaration in the writ describes the land on which the trespass is alleged to have been committed as "a certain parcel of land situated in township numbered two in the second range west...