110 N.E. 446 | NY | 1915
The only question submitted to us on this appeal is the one whether chapter 610 of the Laws of 1874, and the acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto providing for the collection of taxes in the various towns in Westchester county were repealed by implication by the General Tax Law (Laws of 1896, chapter 908; Consolidated Laws, chapter 60).
In the consideration and decision of this question we have not been aided by any brief in behalf of the respondent. Whether this has been due to indifference as to the result of the appeal or to an excess of confidence we are of course unaware. But whatever the cause may have been we have been deprived of the assistance to which we were entitled in the disposition of an important and somewhat troublesome question.
The statute which the respondent formally asserts *234 was repealed, and which the appellant insists was not repealed, by implication, provided a complete plan for the collection of delinquent taxes in the various towns of Westchester county through the agency of town officers. The General Tax Law did not purport to repeal it directly either by anything contained in the body of the act or by inclusion of said local statute in the list of those which were repealed. The repeal, if at all, was simply and solely by implication because the General Tax Law provided a scheme for accomplishing that which theretofore had been accomplished in the towns of Westchester county under and by virtue of the terms of said local statute.
The question of repeal by implication, generally a more or less troublesome one, has been the source of much discussion and perplexity in respect of tax legislation, and prior to the decision of this court in Peterson v. Martino (
After the passage of the General Tax Law in 1896 and *235 by chapter 300 of the Laws of 1897, material and quite extensive amendments were made to the Westchester Tax Law, and again by chapter 338 of the Laws of 1901 important amendments were made to section 7 of that law. Thus it appears conclusively that the legislature did not intend to repeal or at least believed and assumed that it had not repealed the local statute. In addition it is stated without contradiction that during all of these years the authorities of the various towns of Westchester county have proceeded upon the theory that the local statute was still in force, and that proceedings for the collection of taxes and the sale of lands in payment thereof have been conducted under it. Under these circumstances we think that we should hold that there was not an intent upon the part of the legislature to repeal by implication.
This question was considered in People ex rel. Stiner v.Morrison (
It is true that an act amendatory of the original statute, passed by the same legislature which adopted the act supposed to effect the repeal may be stronger evidence of legislative intent than an act passed by a subsequent legislature. But we think that under all that was written *237 by Judge RAPALLO in the case just cited the repeated acts of the legislature subsequent to the enactment of the General Tax Law of 1896 recognizing and amplifying by amendment the Tax Law relating to Westchester county taken in connection with the conduct of the people of the various towns of that county in recognition of the local act furnish such strong reasons for rejecting the theory of repeal by implication that we should not disregard them.
The judgment appealed from should be reversed, with costs.
WILLARD BARTLETT, Ch. J., COLLIN, HOGAN, CARDOZO, SEABURY and POUND, JJ., concur.
Judgment reversed.