110 Mich. 549 | Mich. | 1896
Prior to 1891, mortgages were assessed against the mortgagee, and the real estate was assessed against the owner. By the act of 1891, the legislature provided for the assessment of moi’tgages as an interest in lands, and relieved the mortgagor from taxation upon so much of his property as the mortgagee’s interest represented. Prior to the enactment of this law, in October, 1889, the defendant executed a mortgage, with a condition to “pay and discharge, or cause to be
The sole question presented in this case is whether the stipulations above quoted imposed upon the mortgagor the duty of paying taxes assessed under a law subsequently passed, providing for an assessment against the mortgagee’s interest. The learned circuit judge was of the opinion that this undertaking was not to be so construed, and in that opinion I concur. As was said by Pollock, C. B., in Mayor, etc., of Berwick v. Oswald, 3 El. & Bl. 678:
“Every contract (which does not expressly provide to the contrary) must be considered as made with reference to the existing state of the law, and if, by the intervention of the legislature, a change is made in the law which in any degree affects the contract, such contract, made without some clear and distinct reference to the prospect and possibility of a change, does not hold with reference to the state of things as altered by the new law.”
This opinion is cited with approval in End. Interp. Stat. § 461, where it is said:
“The intervention of the legislature in altering the situation of the contracting parties is analogous to a convulsion of nature, against which they no doubt may provide, but, if they do not provide, it is generally to be considered as excepted out of the contract.”
In this case we think there is nothing in the language of the contract which evidences a purpose to extend the