126 Wash. 111 | Wash. | 1923
— The plaintiff city commenced this action in the superior court for King county, seeking foreclosure of delinquent local assessments levied by it against certain lots to aid in the payment of the cost of local street improvements. The defendant bond company was made a party defendant, because it had become the purchaser from the treasurer of King county of certain general tax certificates of delinquency the lien of which it claimed to he superior to the city’s delinquent local assessment liens sought to be foreclosed. After the sustaining of the city’s demurrer to the bond company’s affirmative defense setting up its
In July, 1911, the local assessments here sought to be foreclosed by the city were duly levied and confirmed against the lots in question, by an ordinance duly passed and approved by the city council and mayor. These assessments are past due and unpaid, and the city is still the holder thereof; none of them ever having been sold or transferred by the city by the issuance of certificates of delinquency or otherwise.
In'April, 1918, and December, 1919, the bond company purchased from the treasurer of King county general tax certificates of delinquency, paying therefor the full amount of general taxes then due and unpaid and charged against the lots in question. No challenge is here made to the validity of the city’s local assessments, or the liens thereof against the lots in question, nor to the right of the city to foreclose such liens by this action, except as such claimed right on the part of the city may be impaired by the superiority of the bond company’s general tax certificates of delinquency. No challenge is here made to the validity of the general taxes upon which the bond company’s certificates of delinquency were issued, nor to the liens thereof against the lots in question, except as such liens may be impaired by the superiority of the city’s local assessment liens here sought to be foreclosed.
The problem here presented is the same as the one presented and first discussed by us in the recent case
Counsel for the bond company ably presents an ingenious argument which, however, as we understand him, we think proceeds upon the erroneous theory that the bond company became the purchaser of the whole of the general tax lien possessed by the state, and that it thereby necessarily becomes subrogated to the whole of the tax lien rights possessed by the state; and that to deny the bond company such right of subrogation is in effect to impair its contract of purchase, in violation of its rights under both the state and Federal constitutions. There might be some ground for such argument to rest upon if our statutes were silent on the question of what lien rights a general tax certificate of delin
Some contention is made in behalf of the bond company that, to withhold from it any portion of the whole of the lien rights of the state with reference to the general taxes for which the certificates of delinquency were issued, would be in effect a violation of the provisions of § 9, art. XI, of our state constitution, reading as follows:
*115 “No county, nor the inhabitants thereof, nor the property therein, shall be released or discharged from its or their proportionate share of taxes to* be levied for s'tate purposes,- nor shall commutation for such taxes be authorized in any form whatever. ’ ’
The argument seems to proceed upon the theory that such a sale of a limited portion of a state’s lien rights is, in a measure, a commutation of some portion of the taxes. We are quite unable to see how there has been commutated any portion of the taxes due to the state. By that sale the state collected every cent of the general taxes levied and charged against the lots in question. We are quite convinced that this is a full satisfaction of those taxes in so far as the state’s rights are concerned. If the bond company was willing to take the general tax liens subject to the city’s local assessment liens, as the statute provided, and pay the whole of the taxes for such limited lien rights, it seems to us quite plain that no constitutional right or duty has been violated thereby. It was in effect a bid by the bond company offering to take a lien less In rank than would subject every possible interest in the property to the payment thereof, just as under some systems of taxation a bidder offers to take a portion of a tract less than the whole and pay therefor the amount of the taxes due upon the whole. Manifestly, the state has the right to sell a limited estate in, or a limited lien upon, a tract of land, as well as the right to sell a limited physical portion of a tract of land for an amount equal to the taxes due on the whole tract; and, of course, any competent person or corporation is equally free to voluntarily make such a purchase.
We adhere to the views expressed in our former decisions above noticed. The decree is affirmed.
Main, O. J., Tolman, Fullerton, and Pemberton, JJ., concur.