State v. Baldwin

• Decision Date: 22 November 1895
• Docket Number: 9813-9811-9812-(102-100-101)
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA v. R. J. BALDWIN
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

65 N.W. 80

62 Minn. 518

STATE OF MINNESOTA v. R. J. BALDWIN

Nos. 9813-9811-9812-(102-100-101)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

November 22, 1895

Three separate proceedings in the district court for Hennepin county to enforce payment of taxes on real estate. The cases were tried together before Jamison, J., and were separately certified to the supreme court. Modified.

F. M Nye, County Attorney, and A. H. Nunn, for plaintiff.

Edward C. Gale, for defendant.

Defendant's motion to strike the proceedings from the calendar should have been granted. The clerk's register is one of the records of the court. G. S. 1894, § 861. Defendant's motion to dismiss should have been granted. The statute looks to an immediate trial at the next general or special term. G S. 1894, §§ 1586-1589. The statute is mandatory. Brown v. Hogle, 30 Ill. 119. The special tax proceedings of 1893 to recover taxes for the same years are in effect an abandonment and dismissal of these actions. Knudson v. Curley, 30 Minn. 435, 15 N.W. 873; Croswell v. Benton, 54 Minn. 264, 55 N.W. 1125; Mulvey v. Tozer, 40 Minn. 384, 42 N.W. 387; Farnham v. Jones, 32 Minn. 7, 19 N.W. 83. Laws 1885 c. 2, § 23, is not retroactive. Statutes are prospective unless the contrary appears. 23 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 448; Parkinson v. Brandenburg, 35 Minn. 294, 28 N.W. 919; McManus v. Duluth, C. & N. R. Co., 51 Minn. 30, 52 N.W. 980. The court erred in including interest. The existence of a contract is the ground for allowance of interest. Sibley v. County of Pine, 31 Minn. 201, 17 N.W. 337; Shaw v. Peckett, 26 Vt. 482. Taxes are not contracts, and the consent of the individual is not required. Peirce v. City of Boston, 3 Metc. (Mass.) 520 Cooley, Tax'n (2d Ed.) 17, and cases cited; Dillon, Mun. Corp. § 817 (655). See City of Faribault v. Misener, 20 Minn. 347 (396). Taxes being in invitum do not bear interest except where it is expressly so provided by statute or ordinance. Shaw v. Peckett, supra; Perry County v. Selma, M. & M. R. Co., 65 Ala. 391; Edmonson v. City of Galveston, 53 Tex. 157; Danforth v. Williams, 9 Mass. 324; Haskell v. Bartlett, 34 Cal. 281; Himmelman v. Oliver, 34 Cal. 246. Cf. County of Redwood v. Winona & St. P. Land Co., 40 Minn. 512, 516, 41 N.W. 465.

MITCHELL J. CANTY, J., concurring.

OPINION

MITCHELL, J.

This proceeding was commenced January 20, 1887, by filing in the office of the clerk of the district court a list of taxes on real estate for the year 1885, in which list a tract owned by R. J. Baldwin was charged with taxes for the year 1885, together with those for 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1883, added thereto in one gross sum of over $ 2,500, without specifying the amount for any particular year. Baldwin answered March 15, 1887, denying the assessment or levy of any taxes on the land except for 1885. The register of actions kept by the clerk of the court contains this entry in the proceeding: "Cause tried July 23, 1888;" but there is no other evidence, record or otherwise, that the proceeding was ever tried. On July 15, 1893, pursuant to the provisions of Laws 1893, c. 150 (G. S. 1894, § 1579, note), a list was filed in the office of the clerk of the district court of all taxes which became delinquent in 1889 or prior years, and were not satisfied by payment, redemption, or sale of the land to actual purchasers. This list also contained the same tract above described, and against it appeared the taxes for the same years, sought to be enforced in this proceeding. Baldwin also answered in that proceeding, setting up as one of his defenses the pendency of the present or prior proceeding. That proceeding is still pending and undetermined. The present proceeding (commenced in January, 1887) was brought on for trial May 28, 1895, and, after motions on part of Baldwin to strike from the calendar and to dismiss were overruled, was tried on the merits, and judgment was ordered against the property for the whole amount of taxes claimed, together with penalties, costs, and interest, amounting to over $ 5,000.

The trial court certifies to this court for its determination the following questions, which had all been decided adversely to Baldwin: "First. Is the entry in the clerk's register of 'Cause tried' sufficient to establish the fact of a former trial, and if so, and for that reason, without further evidence, was the trial had in these proceedings, May 28, 1895, unauthorized and void? Second. Did the lapse of time between the commencement of these proceedings and this trial render such trial unauthorized, and entitle defendant to a dismissal of the action? Third. Did the inclusion of the taxes for the year 1885 and the prior years named, in the special tax proceedings of 1893, work an abandonment or dismissal of these proceedings, commenced in 1887, and then pending to enforce the same taxes? Fourth. Was the inclusion in these proceedings of the taxes for the years 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1883, or any of them, and the attempt to enforce the collection of the taxes for these years, or any of them, in this action, authorized by law? Fifth. Does the fact that the amount sought to be enforced as the taxes for these several years was named in the delinquent and published list as one gross sum, and the amounts claimed to be due for the various years, respectively, were not separately stated, render these proceedings unauthorized and void as to the taxes for all or any one of such years? Sixth. Does the amount charged against the land in this action, and set forth in said delinquent list as $ 2,541.57, bear interest from the time of filing such list to the time of entry of judgment thereunder at the rate of 1 per cent. per month, as computed by this court in its findings and decision hereinabove set forth, or, if not, what rate of interest does it so bear, if any?"

1. The first question must be answered in the negative. This memorandum of the clerk in his register of actions was by itself no evidence that the proceeding had ever been tried.

2. The second question must also be answered in the negative. Assuming, without deciding, that the delay of a plaintiff to prosecute an action may be so long as per se to amount to a legal discontinuance, yet we do not think that, as against the public, the delay of the public officers to bring this proceeding on for trial for somewhat over six years should be held to operate as a discontinuance, or to entitle the appellant to a dismissal on the trial. So far as appears, he never objected to this delay, and, under the circumstances, we may assume that he was entirely willing that the proceeding should never be brought to trial. The provisions of G. S. 1894, § 1586, that in such proceedings the answers shall stand for trial at the same or next general or special term of court, etc., are directory, and not mandatory.

3. The inclusion of the same taxes in the special tax proceedings of 1893 was equivalent to the commencement of another suit for the same cause of action, but did not operate as a dismissal or abandonment of the first proceeding. The cases cited by counsel in which we held that Laws 1881, c. 135 (G. S. 1894, § 1579, note), providing for a sort of general clearing-up tax sale, proceeded upon the theory that the state waived all rights under any prior sales or forfeitures and recognized the owners as still having rights in the lands, are not in point. See Knudson v. Curley, 30 Minn. 433, 15 N.W. 873; Farnham v. Jones, 32 Minn. 7, 19 N.W. 83; Mulvey v. Tozer, 40 Minn. 384, 42 N.W. 387; Croswell v. Benton, 54 Minn. 264, 55 N.W. 1125. The language used in these cases must be construed with reference to the questions before the court. They simply decide that by the statute of 1881 the state waived any rights under prior sales or forfeitures, and recognized existing equities in the owners of the lands.

4. The argument of counsel for the landowner upon the fourth question is wholly based upon the proposition that Laws 1885, c. 2, § 23 (G. S. 1894, § 1631), is prospective in the sense that it only authorizes the auditor to add to the tax for the current year taxes for other years, which shall, after the passage of the act, be prevented from being collected. In support of this contention he relies on the phrase "if any tax" "is prevented from being collected." The statute in question does not impair any vested right, or create any new right, or impose any new obligation. It is purely remedial, and merely gives a remedy for enforcing existing rights and obligations. Such statutes are to be liberally construed, in order to accomplish the beneficent purpose for which they were enacted; and, unless a different legislative intent is expressed or clearly implied, they will generally be construed to apply to rights and obligations that accrued before enactment, as well as to those to accrue thereafter. Such, we think, is the construction which should be given to the statute under consideration.

5. The fifth question is as to the effect of stating, in the delinquent list filed and published, the amount of the taxes for all the years in one gross sum. If this was an omission or irregularity, it was not one which affected the jurisdiction of the court. G. S. 1894, § 1582. It did not appear that it resulted in any prejudice to Baldwin, or that he did not know, or had not the means of ascertaining, the amount of tax for each year included in the total sum charged against his land. Whether, in view of the provisions of section 1588, the omission, if it was one, would have been available to him as a defense to the application for judgment, we need not consider, because he waived it by not setting forth any such defense or objection in his answer.

6. The sixth and last question is whether the delinquent taxes charged...