90 So. 632 | Miss. | 1921
delivered the opinion of the court.
Appellant, John Barrington, filed his bill in the chancery court of Yazoo county against appellees, Joe Rose,
We will consider, first, the question involved in the appeal of the cross-appellants, Jacob Bose and Milton Cannon, who claim title to the northwest quarter of said lot, appellant’s tax title to which was confirmed by the decree appealed from. Appellant’s tax deed to this lot is assailed on one ground alone, and that is that the tax assessor failed to comply with the statute in publishing the notice to taxpayers required by section 4303, Code of 1906 (Hemingway’s Code, section 6937), which provides in substance that, when the tax assessor returns and files the assessment rolls in the office' of the clerk, he shall give notice thereof, as well as the date of the meeting of the board to consider the same, by publication in some newspaper published in the county, etc., which — “shall be notice to all persons of the fact, and of the contents of the roll or rolls so filed; and all persons shall be held to have notice of the time within which to file objections to assessments, and of the time when the board of supervisors will hear the same, and of its power to raise assessments thereat.”
“I have this day filed with the clerk of the board of supervisors of said county the land and personál rolls of said county for the year 1915.”
And down at the left-hand corner of this notice, as first published, was the date “August 2, 1915;” in the second publication there was no date in the place named, nor elsewhere in the notice; in the third publication the date “August 2, 1915,” appeared down in the left-hand corner; and the same is true of the fourth publication of the notice. It is argaied that each publication of this notice should have informed the taxpayers of the date of the filing of the assessment rolls, Avhich was not done. The statute contains no such requirement. It does require that the notice shall recite that the assessment rolls have been filed with the clerk of the board of supervisors, but there is nothing in the statute requiring that the notice shall set out the date'of their filing. The notice in question given by the tax assessor, published in four issues of the paper, from August 6th to August 27th, inclusive, plainly recited that the assessment rolls were at the time of each publication thereof on file with the clerk of the board of supervisors. This is all that was necessary. It was wholly immaterial to the taxpayers whether they were filed one day or three days or more before the first publication of the notice. We therefore conclude that the court below committed no error in confirming the tax title of the appellant, Darring-ton, as to the northwest quarter of said lot.
And the facts and circumstances attending the tax sale and purchase thereunder by appellant of the other lot, the said southwest quarter being exactly the same as those pertaining to the sale and purchase of said northwest quarter, the same result must follow, unless the appellee, 'Joe Eose, had such ownership or interest therein as entitled him to
It was held in Bonds v. Greer, 56 Miss. 710, that the statute secured to the owner or other person interested the right to redeem, and “if it be doubtful whether the right is secured .to the owner, or other person interested in the lands sold for taxes, to redeem them, the doubt should he resolved itl favor of the right.” (Italics ours.) We are referred to no other case in this state by counsel, and we know of none touching on this question; however, it appears that the authorities elsewhere are practically unanimous in holding that statutes allowing the right of redemption from tax sales are to be liberally and benignly construed in favor of the right to redeem. It has been held that the right given to the owner to redeem is not confined to the owner of the fee, but any person who has any interest in the land may redeem; that any right which in law or equity amount to the ownership of land, any right of entry on it, or to its possession or enjoyment, gives the owner thereof the right of redemption. Among the reasons given by some of the courts for such a liberal construction of statutes of this character is that the purchaser at a
We are of the opinion that, by virtue of the will of the father of appellee Joe Rose, and the construction put upon it by the other devisees thereunder, whether they were authorized by law to so construe it or not, and by virtue of the fact that the appellee Carrie Bassett had turned over to the appellee, Joe Rose, for his life, the use and income of her one-half undivided interest of said lot, whether that agreement was binding on’her or not, that under the law said appellee Joe Rose had such interest or title in the entire lot as gave him the right to redeem. The outside world is not concerned in whether the agreements referred to between appellees in reference to the ownership of these lots are binding upon them or not; they are certainly binding upon all others having no interest in the property. When one, claiming to be the owner of land sold for its taxes, offers to redeem, the officer before whom the redemption is sought to be made is not required to try the title of such alleged owner; nor will the court, in a proceeding in which is involved the right of the alleged owner to redeem, stop 'to see whether he has a good title as against the world. If at the time of th,e sale for taxes, and at the time he offers to redeem, he owns the land, or such an interest therein as gives him the right to the exclusive use of its fruits, he has the right to redeem, pro-. vided, of course, such right is not barred by limitation.
These views in no wise conflict with Wilson v. Sykes, 67 Miss. 617, 7 So. 492. That was a case where one tenant
Affirmed on direct and cross appeal.