67 A.2d 679 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1949
Argued March 7, 1949. The court below directed a verdict for plaintiff and on it judgment was subsequently entered. Defendant appealed from the refusal of her motions for judgment n. o. v. and a new trial.
Plaintiff seeks recovery for the amount of taxes which it paid upon defendant's property in the circumstances to be related. The case involves application of the rules of subrogation, and the operation of the Statute of Limitations upon actions for subrogation.
On April 19, 1930, defendant's brother, John A. Reily, while the record owner of the premises, borrowed $12,000 from plaintiff on a judgment note, and judgment was entered thereon on April 24, 1930. Reily died on December 10, 1933, and during 1938 the lien of the judgment was continued by revival proceedings against Reily's estate in which defendant was summoned as a terre tenant. Meanwhile, i. e., on September 8, 1933, defendant had recorded a deed dated October 19, 1926, wherein Reily granted the premises to her. Plaintiff issued execution upon the revived judgment, purchased the premises at the sheriff's sale, paid the costs and unpaid taxes and received the sheriff's deed on May 14, 1940. Plaintiff's proceeding for possession under the Act of April 20, 1905, P. L. 239, was decided in defendant's favor. On February 27, 1947, plaintiff instituted *170 this action of assumpsit to collect $342.89, covering taxes for the years 1937, 1938 and 1939.1
All the underlying elements of subrogation are present in this factual situation. Defendant was bound to pay the taxes assessed against the premises while she was the registered owner. Pennsylvania Co. v. Bergson,
Our books are replete with cases where a party who has paid taxes assessed against the property of another has recovered them in an action at law. A mortgagee who purchases the mortgaged premises and pays delinquent taxes is subrogated to the rights of the taxing authorities, and may recover them in assumpsit against the record owner, Hogg v. Longstreth,
The doctrine of our cases is that a judgment creditor who issues execution upon his judgment, purchases the premises, and is compelled to discharge unpaid taxes is subrogated to the rights of the taxing power, and is entitled to recover the taxes in an action of assumpsit against the owner of record at the time the taxes were assessed.
Both sides rely upon Home Owners' Loan Corp. v. Murdock etal.,
Nevertheless, plaintiff cannot recover. Its right of action accrued when it paid the taxes on May 14, 1940, and was lost six years later. Its action, instituted on February 27, 1947, was too late. Ault v. Adamson,
The court below held that the litigants were parties to a quasi-contract or a contract implied in law, and therefore the Statute of Limitations did not bar the action.2 This was error. Recovery was sought upon the principles of subrogation, and the action did not involve a contract of any kind. By paying the taxes in the circumstances here present plaintiff stepped into the shoes of the taxing authorities, and defendant was obligated to pay plaintiff that which she had owed to the political subdivisions. Her obligation to pay did not rest upon a promise, express or implied. It existed independently of promise or contract.
"The right of legal subrogation is not a matter of contract; it does not arise from any contractual relation between the parties, but takes place as a matter of equity, with or without an agreement to that effect. It is not dependent on privity or founded on, or dependent on, contract or on the absence of contract, but is independent of any contractual relations between the parties": 60 C. J., Subrogation, § 7. The text is thoroughly supported by our cases. Williamson's Appeal,
In Hutcheson v. Reash,
The judgment is reversed and is here entered for defendant.
