Willis Creek Drainage Dist. v. Yazoo County, 37622

• Decision Date: 13 November 1950
• Docket Number: No. 37622,37622
• Citation: 48 So.2d 498,209 Miss. 849
• Parties: WILLIS CREEK DRAINAGE DIST. v. YAZOO COUNTY.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 498

48 So.2d 498

209 Miss. 849

WILLIS CREEK DRAINAGE DIST. v. YAZOO COUNTY.

No. 37622.

Supreme Court of Mississippi, Division A.

Nov. 13, 1950.

Henry & Barbour, Yazoo City, for appellant.

Griffin Norquist, Yazoo City, for appellee.

McGEHEE, Justice.

This is a suit filed by the appellant, Willis Creek Drainage District, for injunctive relief to compel the Board of Supervisors of Yazoo County to make the necessary order for the selling of certain lands now belonging to the county in the said drainage district. In order to pay the delinquent drainage assessments for the years 1946, 1947 and 1948 in the total sum of $774.94; and to enjoin the sheriff and tax collector of said county to advertise and sell the said land for the collection of the said past due and unpaid assessments unless the same are paid by the county under the decree of the court which is asked to be entered in that behalf; and the complainant drainage district also prays for general relief.

The defendants interposed a general demurrer to the bill of complaint on the ground that there is no equity on the face thereof. The demurrer having been sustained, and the complainant having declined to amend or plead further, the court entered a final decree dismissing the suit, and the complainant appeals.

The bill alleges that on November 12, 1923, the bonds of the said drainage district in the sum of $60,000 were authorized to be issued as of October 1, 1923, and that the last four bonds of the series matured on October 1, 1945, 1946, 1947 and 1948, respectively; that on April 2, 1945, four separate tracts of land in the drainage district were purchased by the defendant Yazoo County at private sale from the owners thereof for a good and valuable consideration, and against which tracts of land the benefits originally assessed amounted to the sum of $4,415; that the assessment made by the commissioners of the drainage district was duly ratified, approved and confirmed by a decree of the chancery court, as provided by law; and that the purchaser, Yazoo County, paid the assessment levied by the board of supervisors on recommendation of the drainage commissioners of 4 1/2% on the assessed benefits for the year 1945 but declined to pay a similar amount for the years 1946, 1947, and 1948, but rejected a claim duly presented by the drainage district to the board of supervisors for the sum due for each of the said years.

The defendants denied the right of the drainage district to enforce the collection of the amount claimed against the county, or to compel the sheriff to sell the property for the collection thereof, on the ground that the land was exempt from the payment of any further amounts on the benefits assessed against the same, because of the fact that the four tracts of land belonged to the county during the period covered by the claim.

Section 4695, Code of 1942, Section 4450, Hemingway's Code of 1917, provides, among other things, that: 'The chancery court or chancellor in vacation shall at the same time that the assessment of benefits is filed, or at any subsequent time, when called upon by the board of commissioners of the district so to do, enter upon the minutes of the chancery court an order which shall have all the force of a judgment providing that there shall be assessed upon the real property of the district a special assessment, or levy, to pay the estimated cost of the improvement, with not less than ten (10) per cent., added for unforseen contingencies, the amount to be assessed upon each tract of land included within the district shall be such part of the estimated cost of the improvement as the assessment of benefits against such tract bears to the assessment of benefits against all the real property in the district, * * *.

'The assessment or assessments so levied shall be a lien on all of the real property of the district from the time that the same is levied by the chancery court or chancellor in vacation in an amount not to exceed the total amount of estimated benefits on all the real property in the district, and shall be entitled to preference to all demands, executions, encumbrances or liens whatsoever, and shall continue until such assessment with any penalty and cost that may accrue thereon, shall have been paid. * * *'

Thus, it will be seen that when the county purchased the four tracts of land in question on April 2, 1945, the same was encumbered by a judgment lien, rendered under a statute which expressly provides that the same 'shall continue until such assessment * * * shall have been paid.'

Section 4090, Code of 1942, Chap. 174, Laws of 1936, provides in substance that when any land in a drainage district is sold to the State for delinquent taxes, the lien of the drainage district on the land for any special drainage district assessment shall not be abated or cancelled on account of the sale of such land to the State, but that such lien shall be held in abeyance during the period the property is owned by the State, and that when the land is sold the lien shall again become effective. And Section 4714, Code of 1942, provides in substance that in such case the land commissioner cannot sell the land for the State until he is furnished by the applicant with a certificate from the drainage commissioners showing that satisfactory arrangements have been made with the commissioners for the payment of the drainage taxes accruing subsequent to the sale to the State.

Section 4651, Code of 1942, authorizes the drainage commissioners to purchase...