State ex rel. Jones v. Graham

• Decision Date: 06 January 1885
• Citation: 22 N.W. 114,17 Neb. 43
• Parties: THE STATE OF NEBRASKA, EX REL. JOHN T. JONES, v. ROBERT B. GRAHAM
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

22 N.W. 114

17 Neb. 43

THE STATE OF NEBRASKA, EX REL. JOHN T. JONES, v. ROBERT B. GRAHAM

Supreme Court of Nebraska

January 6, 1885

ORIGINAL application for mandamus to compel payment of taxes collected by the respondent as county treasurer.

Writ of mandamus issued.

Charles O. Whedon and A. C. Ricketts, for relator.

Harwood Ames & Kelly, for respondent.

OPINION

MAXWELL, J.

The relator is the treasurer of the city of Lincoln, and the defendant the treasurer of Lancaster county. In May, 1884, the treasurer of Lancaster county sold lot 10, in block 13, in South Lincoln, to Lancaster county, for the delinquent taxes of every kind due thereon, and executed a certificate of purchase to said county. On or about the ninth day of September, 1884, the county commissioners sold and assigned the certificate to C. W. Coffyn for fifty and one-half per cent of the face value thereof. On the twenty-sixth of September, 1884, the owner of the lot redeemed the same from tax sale by paying all the taxes due thereon, with interest, penalties, and costs. Of the amount thus paid, the sum of $ 20.88 was for delinquent taxes and interest thereon due the city of Lincoln. The relator thereupon demanded said sum of the defendant, who refused to pay the same to him, for the reason that it belongs to Coffyn under the assignment.

That county commissioners may purchase real estate upon which the county has a lien for taxes, after such real estate has been offered for sale and not sold for want of bidders is now well settled in this court, ^[*] but the relator denies their authority to assign the certificate of purchase for one-half of the face value. [Comp. Stat., chap. 77, art. III., sec. 2.] The relator also questions the validity of the act authorizing the assignment of tax certificates by a county, for want of a sufficient title. Without entering into a discussion of the question of the title of the act, we think the provisions of the statute transcend the power of the legislature.

Section 1, article IX., of the constitution, reads as follows:

"The legislature shall provide such revenue as may be needful, by levying a tax by valuation, so that every person and corporation shall pay a tax in proportion to the value of his, her, or its property and franchises, the value to be ascertained in such manner as the legislature shall direct, and it shall have the power to tax peddlers, auctioneers, brokers, hawkers, commission merchants, showmen, jugglers, inn-keepers, liquor dealers, toll bridges, ferries, insurance, telegraph, and express interests or business, venders of patents, in such manner as it shall direct by general law, uniform as to the class upon which it operates."

Section 4 provides that "the legislature shall have no power to release or discharge any county, city, township, town, or district whatever, or the inhabitants thereof, or any corporation, or the property therein, from their or its proportionate share of taxes to be levied for state purposes, or due any municipal corporation, nor shall commutation for such taxes be authorized in any form whatever."

Revenue is to be...