Tibbals v. Board of County Com'rs of Fremont County, 2670

• Decision Date: 02 August 1955
• Docket Number: No. 2670,2670
• Citation: 74 Wyo. 232,286 P.2d 598
• Parties: Anna S. TIBBALS and John J. Spriggs, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. The BOARD OF the COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF the COUNTY OF FREMONT, State of Wyoming, and J. L. Gardner, Henry Lockard and Arthur Faulkner, as the Individual Members of said Board, and J. F. Shipton, as County Treasurer of said Fremont County, Wyoming, Defendants and Respondents.
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 598

286 P.2d 598

74 Wyo. 232

Anna S. TIBBALS and John J. Spriggs, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. The BOARD OF the COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF the COUNTY OF FREMONT, State of Wyoming, and J. L. Gardner, Henry Lockard and Arthur Faulkner, as the Individual Members of said Board, and J. F. Shipton, as County Treasurer of said Fremont County, Wyoming, Defendants and Respondents.

No. 2670.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

Aug. 2, 1955.

John J. Spriggs, Sr., John J. Spriggs, Jr., Lander, for appellants.

Smith and Nicholas, W. J. Nicholas, Lander, for respondents.

Before RINER, C. J., BLUME, J., and PARKER, District Judge.

PARKER, District Judge.

This case, number 2670 herein (number 6485 below), was consolidated for trial with case number 2671 in the Supreme Court (number 5200 below) and is an appeal from a judgment denying plaintiffs relief in a suit to quiet title on mining claims and for damages. 286 P.2d 601.

Although the pleadings and evidence contain reference to other matters, the salient and pertinent facts relating to the case, as this court views them, are: That plaintiffs, prior to 1932, asserted certain rights in the mineral claims in question, which on the county records of Fremont County stood in the name of the Federal Gold Mining Company. On December 7, 1932, J. J. Spriggs, who apparently was interested in the property both as counsel for Tibbals and otherwise, paid the county treasurer of Fremont County $1,569.69 for certificates of purchase on the said mining claims previously sold to Fremont County for taxes levied in the years 1928 and 1929. Thereafter, the taxes for the years succeeding 1932 were unpaid and the property was again up for sale in 1933. J. J. Spriggs and Mrs. Tibbals, according to the evidence, made some inquiries of the county treasurer of Fremont County regarding the property and the taxes thereon. The evidence is somewhat indefinite as to the nature of the discussion between plaintiffs and the county treasurer, but it is clear that the county treasurer refused to issue a tax deed to J. J. Spriggs upon submission by Spriggs to the county treasurer of the certificates of purchase and newspaper notices regarding the application for tax deed thereunder. It also appears, although somewhat indirectly, that there was a refusal on the part of the county treasurer to accept the 1933 taxes on the property; and the county treasurer in his conversation gave the impression that a previous injunction issued by the District Court of Fremont County precluded him from dealing with plaintiffs regarding the property.

Many years have elapsed since that time; and J. J. Spriggs has since then secured a quit-claim deed to the mining claims from a party purportedly owning them previously, and now claims the property by virtue of circumstances other than the claims of ownership of Tibbals and Spriggs on December 7, 1932. However, as we view it, the disposition of this case depends primarily on two things: (1) Was the 1933 assessment and sale of the mining claims prima facie valid and legal, or invalid and void; and (2) If the 1933 assessment and sale was invalid, did the plaintiffs in 1933 and subsequently have (a) a right to protect themselves by paying the taxes on the property, or (b) a sufficient interest in the property and standing in court to permit the bringing of this action?

In answer to the first question, it appears that the 1933 assessment was invalid for a number of reasons, discussion of some of which is unnecessary in this holding. Suffice to say that the property was not assessed in the name of the record owner. Section 32-510, Wyoming Compiled Statutes, 1945, provides, inter alia, that:

'On the last day of January in each year the board of county commissioners shall furnish each assessor with suitable assessment rolls and schedules properly ruled and headed, in which to enter the following items: First--The name of the individual, corporation, company, society, partnership, or firm, to whom any property shall be taxable * * *.'

This statute was first interpreted in 1881 in the case of Hecht v. Boughton, 2 Wyo. 385, which at some length and with considerable force, stated the proposition that if the assessment was not made in the name of the owner, the resultant proceedings were void. Two other Wyoming cases have discussed the proposition, now taken to be unquestioned. In Electrolytic Copper Co. v. Rambler Consol. Mines Corp., 34 Wyo. 304, 310, 243 P. 126, 127, ...