State v. Several Parcels of Land

• Decision Date: 12 July 1907
• Docket Number: 14,829
• Parties: STATE OF NEBRASKA, APPELLANT, v. SEVERAL PARCELS OF LAND ET AL., APPELLEES
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

113 N.W. 196

79 Neb. 668

STATE OF NEBRASKA, APPELLANT, v. SEVERAL PARCELS OF LAND ET AL., APPELLEES

No. 14,829

Supreme Court of Nebraska

July 12, 1907

APPEAL from the district court for Douglas county: ALEXANDER C TROUP, JUDGE. Reversed.

REVERSED.

H. E Burnam and I. J. Dunn, for appellant.

Hamilton & Maxwell, contra.

OPINION

JACKSON, C.

Tax lot 2,376 in Douglas county consists of lot 6 in block 182 1/2 in the city of Omaha. Tax lot 2,375 is an eight foot strip lying immediately west of lot 6 in block 182 1/2. The two lots were taxed as one tract. The Union Trust Company holds a mortgage on tax lot 2,376, but has no interest in lot 2,375. The taxes for the years 1894 to 1903 were delinquent, and the county treasurer of Douglas county proceeded in the name of the state under the scavenger act for the collection of this tax. His petition included some 26,000 tracts in all. In preparing the petition the treasurer, by mistake, showed all the delinquent state and county tax levied on the two tax lots as having been levied on lot 2,375. The Union Trust Company was made defendant, appeared in the scavenger suit, and contested the legality of certain special taxes and assessments levied by the city authorities. At the October, 1904, term of the district court for Douglas county, decree was entered to conform with the prayer of the petition in so far as the state and county taxes were involved. Under the decree both tax lots were sold to the city of Omaha on May 17, 1905, and certificates of sale issued pursuant to the provisions of the act under which the proceedings were had. Thereafter the error in the original petition was discovered, and on April 9, 1906, the plaintiff filed its petition in the scavenger suit, asking tat the decree rendered therein, in so far as it affected tax lots 2,375 and 2,376, be vacated, the tax sale certificates canceled, and that the taxes levied on those lots be apportioned according to the assessed valuation. The allegation of the petition important to the inquiry is: "That in the compilation of the petition and tax record the treasurer of Douglas county and his employees by accident, oversight, mistake and clerical error included therein the regular state and county taxes for said years as having been levied and assessed only against said tract No. 2,375, and did not include in said petition any tax record or set forth therein any part of any regular state and county taxes as being levied and assessed against said tract 2,376, and that said oversight, mistake and clerical error was not discovered until after the sale of said property hereinafter referred to and after the adjournment of the court term at which the decree against said property was...