Smith v. Oscar Brothers
| Decision Date | 15 May 1905 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | NANCY SMITH ET AL. v. OSCAR BROTHERS, JR |
April, 1905
FROM the chancery court of Clay county, HON. HENRY L. MULDROW, Chancellor.
Mrs. Smith and others, appellants, were complainants, and Brothers, Jr., the appellee, was defendant in the court below. From a decree in defendant's favor the complainants appealed to the supreme court. The object of the suit was to cancel a municipal tax deed, made by the tax collector of the city of West Point, which city is not governed by the code chapter on "Municipalities," but by a special legislative charter. Laws 1892, ch. 148, p. 426 et seq.
Reversed and remanded.
A. F. Fox, for appellants.
The deed here involved is clearly void under the decision of this court in Bowers v. Andrews, 52 Miss. 596.
Critz & Kimbrough, for appellee.
The description in the deed does not contain a patent ambiguity. Kyle v. Rhodes, 71 Miss. 488; Eggleston v. Watson, 53 Miss. 340; Stewart v. Cage, 59 Miss. 558. At best for appellant the ambiguity is a latent one, and this was fully explained by parol testimony. If the ambiguity be conceded to be a patent one (which we do not by any means concede), still it was perfectly competent, under Code 1899, § 3776, to explain it, as was done.
The description in the tax deed is as follows: "Home lot in lot 6, block 4, ward 1." There may have been several "home lots" in lot 6, and we think, under the authority of Bowers v. Andrews, 52 Miss. 596, the description is plainly void for patent ambiguity. The deed must stand or fall by itself. The assessment roll cannot aid the description in the deed. The doctrine of Bowers v. Andrews is still the law, as a matter of course, notwithstanding sec. 3817 and like sections of the code of 1892. The fact that if the assessment roll furnishes some clew, which, if followed up by parol proof, would identify the land as described on the assessment roll, does not at all affect the other proposition announced in Bowers v. Andrews--that a description in a tax deed will be void if the ambiguity therein is patent.
Reversed and remanded for decree in accordance with this opinion.
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