Utah Lead Co. v. Piute County

• Decision Date: 11 March 1937
• Docket Number: 5845
• Citation: 65 P.2d 1190,92 Utah 1
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: UTAH LEAD CO. v. PIUTE COUNTY et al

65 P.2d 1190

92 Utah 1

UTAH LEAD CO. v. PIUTE COUNTY et al

No. 5845

Supreme Court of Utah

March 11, 1937

Appeal from District Court, Sixth District, Piute County; Nephi J Bates, Judge.

Action by the Utah Lead Company against Piute County, Jacob W Young, and another. From a judgment for defendant Young plaintiff appeals.

REVERSED AND REMANDED, with directions.

Cline, Wilson & Cline, of Milford, and Henry E. Beal, of Richfield, for appellant.

E. C. Jensen, Geo. H. Lunt, and E. A. Rogers, all of Salt Lake City, T. A. Hunt, of Richfield, and G. R. Beebe, of Junction, for respondents.

WOLFE, Justice. FOLLAND, C. J., and EPHRAIM HANSON, MOFFAT, and LARSON, JJ., concur.

OPINION

WOLFE, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment rendered by the district court of Piute county quieting title to certain mining claims in defendant Jacob W. Young. Young bases his claim of title on a private sale from the county after the county had received an auditor's deed consequent on alleged tax delinquencies. Plaintiff based its cause of action to quiet title on ownership which it is alleged was never divested by the auditor's deed because no tax was due at the time the redemption period terminated and because of numerous claimed irregularities in assessments.

The facts are complicated. We shall, for the reader's benefit, go back to 1924, reciting as far as possible the chronology and then, so that the legal questions may be better understood, endeavor to regroup those facts bearing on each question.

It appears in 1924 and previous thereto, there were several sets of mining claims located in Bullion Canyon in the Ohio mining district near Marysvale, Utah, some assessed in the name of Bully Boy Mining Company, some in the name of Dalton Gold Mining & Milling Company, some in the name of Utah Lead Company, several in the names of Davidow and Garrison, and some in the names of other individuals. The connection between all these companies and individuals does not clearly appear from the record, but it appears that there is no contention that the Utah Lead Company and its predecessors in interest were not the owners of all the claims involved in this suit from 1924 and prior thereto, until tax deed to the county in 1932.

On the ground covered by different groups of claims were erected mining buildings, mills, a power house, and various other improvements. There was also located mining and mill equipment and machinery on various parts of the property of the Utah Lead Company. We hereafter denominate this as the "personal property." This becomes material because it is claimed by plaintiff that the assessments of 1924 and 1925 show that some of this personal property was assessed once in the name of the Bully Boy, once again in the name of the Dalton Mining & Milling Company, and once again in the name of Michael Barnett as agent of the Utah Lead Company, thus making a double or triple assessment of some of the personal property. In passing, it may be now stated that the exhibits showing assessments of personal property do not show the assessment by particular identification, but only by names of objects or improvements and therefore are not definite enough for us to say they do or do not show this state of facts. Bits of evidence are pointed out to us by both sides from which we are asked to infer that there was or was not a double or triple assessment.

The contention of plaintiff that there was a double and triple assessment of a claimed excess of $ 650.16, goes to its point that it overpaid taxes on its personal property, which if applied to its taxes on realty would have resulted in payment of all delinquent realty taxes. To this contention replies defendant, in addition to denying triple and double assessments, that the county was not obligated to apply to taxes on one piece of property once become delinquent, an excess found to have been paid on another piece of property. We shall not pause longer in this statement of facts to further elaborate, comment, or at this time decide these issues.

To resume the recital of the facts: In regard to the personal property, taxes for the same were not paid for the years of 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, and 1928. On July 23, 1929, Piute county advertised this personal property for sale to be held on August 9, 1929, and the notice specified that the sale would be for the delinquent taxes for "all previous years in which such delinquency exists including the years 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927 and 1928," describing without particular identification the personal property to be sold. At this point, Mr. Sterling K. Heppler, at the time of the trial deceased, but then attorney for plaintiff, and prior to August 9th, met with the county attorney, the treasurer, and the commissioners of Piute county, and made a payment on account of the taxes on this personal property as part of an agreement to pay a certain amount every month until all the delinquent taxes on the personalty were paid in exchange for the promise of the county officials that they would postpone the sale. Heppler agreed to pay advertising costs in connection with the postponement. But just what advertising costs his understanding with the county embraced is one of the dark and disputed areas of this case. Plaintiff claims the question as to what he agreed on behalf of plaintiff to pay and what advertising costs should be charged against plaintiff by the county, becomes very important in the matter of determining whether there was an excess payment on the personal property which the county should have applied to the delinquencies on the real estate. This will be more clearly seen when we consider the figures. Including the first payment by Heppler, at the time of the agreement, of $ 160 made before August 9, 1929, and up to and including November 1, 1930, plaintiff paid $ 4,538.45 to the county. On October 1, 1930, a statement was given by the county treasurer to Heppler showing payments on account of the 1924 and 1925 taxes on certain of the personal property of $ 494.13, including penalties, interest, costs, and redemption fee; also the payment of $ 2,725.11 on account of taxes on other of the personal property for the years of 1924, 1925, and the combined personal property for the years of 1926, 1927, and 1928, with interest, penalties, and redemption fee; also the payment of $ 442.35 for the 1929 tax on the combined personal property, all of the personal property from the year 1926 on being combined in one assessment and notice; also a payment of $ 156.03 for the 1924 taxes on still other property with interest, penalties, and redemption fee to date, to wit, October 1, 1930, or a total of $ 3,817.62. The total payments shown to and including that date amounted to $ 4,038.45, which was $ 220.82 more than was needed to pay the total of taxes, interest, and penalties on all the personal property for all the years of 1924 to 1929, both inclusive, but--and here is the rub--there was tacked on the tax bill a charge of $ 960.40 for advertising "to date," leaving still owing, according to the county's contention, the sum of $ 739.58. It appears this advertising bill was accumulated because the county continued to run weekly, during the period reaching from before August 9, 1929, to October 1, 1930, an advertisement of this sale on the theory that it was "keeping it alive." And it claims that it was within Heppler's agreement to pay this whole advertising bill.

On November 1st, Heppler paid another $ 500, thereby reducing this amount of $ 739.58 to $ 239.58. We shall return to this point in a moment. It should be noted before the fact is out of mind that one of the points defendants make to prove that Heppler agreed to pay all of this advertising bill was that after having received the bill for $ 960.40 on October 1st, he made another payment of $ 500 on November 1st, whereas, it is argued if he had agreed to pay only the cost of one publication showing postponement or just such publications as were reasonably or legally necessary to keep alive the sale for delinquent taxes--whatever that might be--he would have then made a protest. He would not, it is said, have paid more on the bill when, without the large charge for advertising, he was already overpaid $ 220.82. The point is of considerable potency and will be taken into consideration later if we find it necessary to decide whether the lower court was correct in finding that,

"prior to the date of sale, August 9th, 1929, plaintiff through Sterling K. Heppler and Michael Barnett, agents of the plaintiff, made and agreement with Piute County that in the event the sale be continued, plaintiff would pay in addition to the taxes, interest, penalties and costs, all advertising costs and other expenses in connection with the continued advertising for sale of said property."

If defendants are correct in their contention that an excess over what is necessary to pay delinquent taxes on one piece of property owned by a taxpayer cannot by such taxpayer be urged as a payment on a delinquent tax on another piece of property, especially where the claimed excess is the result of installment payments on a series of delinquent taxes and the county has apportioned and paid to the other taxing units their share of the total tax collected, there may be no necessity of determining this issue of whether there were excess payments on the personal property tax delinquencies. For it must be kept in mind that plaintiff levels its assertion that there were excess payments, not only for the purpose of showing that the personal property should not have been sold for delinquencies, but for the purpose of showing that there were, if such excesses were credited thereto, no delinquencies in the real estate taxes to be...