St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Alexander

• Decision Date: 04 June 1887
• Citation: 4 S.W. 753
• Parties: ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. <I>v.</I> ALEXANDER
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

4 S.W. 753

ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO.

v. ALEXANDER

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 4, 1887.

Appeal from circuit court, Garland county. In chancery.

Dodge & Johnson, for appellant. Leland Leatherman, for appellee.

COCKRILL, C. J.

At the collector's sale for the non-payment of taxes in 1877, Alexander, the appellee, purchased and received his certificate of purchase for a section of land in Garland county. When the owner's time for redemption had expired, the clerk executed and delivered to him a deed to the land. In 1884 he brought an action of ejectment for the possession of the premises. Exceptions were filed to his deed, which were sustained by the court, and his action was dismissed. He then filed his complaint to foreclose the lien for the taxes, penalty, and costs, and for the taxes of 1878-79, which he had subsequently paid, and for a personal judgment against the railroad company as the defaulting land-owner at the time of sale. The land was condemned, and the personal judgment rendered as prayed. After the tax sale the company sold portions of the land, and its vendees were parties defendant. They interposed no special defense, but relied upon the railroad to make good its answer. All join in the appeal.

1. The company pleaded the three and the five year statutes of limitations as a bar to the action, and the argument is that the cause of action accrued, if not at the date of the tax purchase, then at the expiration of the time allowed for redemption; and that more than five years having elapsed from the expiration of the time to redeem before the suit was brought, the remedy was barred. The right of the purchaser at the tax sale to reimbursement for his outlay upon failure of his title is statutory. "If he has received a deed which for any reason is subject to fatal infirmity, he will lose what he has paid," unless the statute affords him relief. Cooley, Tax'n, (5th Ed.) 546. Our statute does not undertake to confer upon the tax purchaser any remedy for reimbursement until the sale at which he has purchased shall "prove invalid." Mansf. Dig. § 5789. The only method known to the law of proving the invalidity of a sale is by a judicial investigation, and it follows that his cause of action does not accrue until a court of competent jurisdiction has adjudged that the title is bad. The plaintiff's suit was instituted within a few months after the adjudication in the action of ejectment, and the defense of the statute of limitations was not sustained.

2. It is argued that the personal judgment against the railroad is erroneous. The complaint alleged, and the answer did not deny, that the railroad was the owner of the land, and failed in its duty to pay the taxes when the same became due, and when the sale was made. The statute in force at the time of the sale provides that, if the sale should prove invalid, "the purchaser shall receive from the proprietor of such land or lot the amount of taxes, interest, penalty, and costs of advertising, and the amount of taxes paid thereon subsequent to such sale," and charges the land also with the payment of these sums. As was ruled in Hunt v. Curry, 37 Ark. 100, 105, the railroad company was the "proprietor" of the land, whose default brought about the...