State Mortgage Corporation v. State

• Decision Date: 13 June 1928
• Docket Number: (No. 3562.)
• Citation: 9 S.W.2d 271
• Parties: STATE MORTGAGE CORPORATION v. STATE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

9 S.W.2d 271

STATE MORTGAGE CORPORATION v. STATE.

(No. 3562.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Texarkana.

June 13, 1928.

Rehearing Denied August 2, 1928.

Appeal from District Court, Harrison County; P. O. Beard, Judge.

Action by the State against Jack Lee, the State Mortgage Corporation, and others. From the judgment, defendant last named appeals. Affirmed.

September 9, 1926, judgment was rendered by the district court of Harrison county in favor of the state of Texas in its suit against Jack Lee for the taxes unpaid for the year 1925 on lot 2, block 11, of the Weisman addition to the city of Marshall. Afterward the land was sold for said taxes as directed in the judgment, and was purchased by the appellant, State Mortgage Corporation, to whom the sheriff conveyed it by a deed dated December 7, 1926. The instant suit was commenced by a petition filed July 16, 1927. It was by appellee state of Texas as plaintiff against Jack Lee, "unknown owners" of said lot, and appellant, State Mortgage Corporation, as defendants, and was to recover $143.55 as the unpaid taxes (and interest and penalties thereon) assessed against said lot for the year 1926 and the years 1911 to 1918, inclusive. The only answer to the suit was one filed by the appellant mortgage corporation, denying the allegations in the petition, and alleging that, as the purchaser of the lot at the sale made for the taxes of 1925, it acquired same "free [quoting] from any lien for delinquent taxes of former years," and that, because of its purchase of the lot "under foreclosure of a lien for the taxes for the year 1925, the liens of the plaintiff, if any, for taxes for the years 1918, 1917, 1912, 1915, 1913, 1916, 1914, and 1911 were wiped out by the defendant company, and plaintiff therefor has no lien for taxes on said property for the years last above named. Defendant stands ready to pay taxes accrued by virtue of taxes delinquent for the year 1926, but says it is not obligated to pay and does not owe taxes for said prior years." It appeared from testimony heard at the trial, which was before the court without a jury, that, in appellee's petition in the suit for the taxes of 1925, it prayed "that its lien for all other taxes be preserved to it"; that in the judgment rendered in said suit directing a sale of the lot for the taxes of 1925 it was provided that such sale should be subject "to the lien and taxes of the plaintiff and the county of Harrison for all taxes not sued for herein, if such there be, and the lien for all taxes for said plaintiff and county not sued for is hereby preserved to them respectively"; that, in the order of sale issued on the judgment, the sheriff was directed to sell the lot subject to the lien of appellee and Harrison county "for all other taxes [quoting] not sued for in this suit which may be due or owing to them"; and that the sheriff's deed to appellee provided that the conveyance of the lot was subject "to the lien of the state of Texas and county of Harrison for all taxes due and owing on said lands, not sued for in said suit."

The appeal is by the mortgage company alone from the judgment rendered by the court below November 25, 1927, in favor of appellee against Jack Lee for the sum sued for, to wit, $143.55, and foreclosing, as against all the parties, the lien claimed by appellee against the lot to secure the payment of said sum.

Wallace & Taylor, of Dallas, and W. H. Strength, of Marshall, for appellant.

John E. Taylor and Chas. E. Carter, both of Marshall, for the State.

WILLSON, C. J. (after stating the facts as above).

Unless the fact that the sale of the lot for taxes under the judgment of September 9, 1926, was made subject to the lien of the state and county for taxes unpaid thereon for years prior to 1925 warranted the judgment now before this court for review, it should be reversed; for it is settled that a sale of land under a judgment for taxes of a given year or years, in the absence of any saving reservation, passes title to the purchaser free of the lien for unpaid taxes of prior years. City of Houston v. Bartlett, 29 Tex. Civ. App. 27, 68 S. W. 730; State v. Liles (Tex. Civ. App.) 212 S. W. 517; Ivey v. Teichman (Tex. Civ. App.) 201 S....