50 Iowa 538 | Iowa | 1879
I. The petition alleges that certain taxes upon personal property were assessed and levied against plaintiff, which for more than four years the treasurer of the county failed to collect by distress and sale of property, or tO' bring forward upon the tax books as required by Code, § 845, ^ and that plaintiff made application to the board of supervisors to remit the penalties and interest which had accrued upon such taxes, as that body is required to do by chapter 29, Acts Fifteenth General Assembly. Upon the refusal of the supervisors to enter the remission as requested, plaintiff instituted.
The points made by counsel for appellants will be considered in the order of their presentation in his argument.
We may, for the purposes of this case, admit the existence of the contract between the treasurer and the people, or between that officer and the State, but we do not think that the statute releases the treasurer from liability on account of his negligence, if negligence in fact exists. The law, in effect, provides that the interest and penalties are'collectible within four years and not afterward. It operates as a statute of limitations. No rule of law would relieve an officer or agent, charged with the collection of money, of liability for negligence in failing to make the collection before the claim or debt is barred by the statute of limitations. There is reason to hold that the case of the treasurer is not different. He is charged with the collection of the penalties and interest upon taxes. They are not collectible after the expiration of four years. The officer negligently fails to make the collection within that time and thereby the county loses the money. Now, while we do not hold that the treasurer is liable in such a case, we
With the object and policy of the statute we have nothing to do. We fail to discover that it conflicts with the Constitution. We are required, therefore, to sustain 'it. The judgment of the Circuit Court is '
Affirmed.