64 Minn. 139 | Minn. | 1896
This is an action to determine adverse claims to a vacant quarter section of land in St. Louis county. The plaintiff proved his title direct from the United States government, and the defendant claims under a tax title; and to sustain it, and thus overcome the plaintiff’s prima facie case, the defendant introduced in evidence a certificate from the auditor of St. Louis county, dated September 16, 1884, which showed that this land was assessed for taxes for the year 1883, and, the same being delinquent, the land was sold to the state at a tax sale, September 15, 1884, and the next day assigned by the state to this defendant for the sum of $4.60, the amount of the tax and interest. The plaintiff, then, in rebuttal, introduced in evidence the judgment roll in the tax proceedings, from which it appeared that there was no affidavit of publication attached, made by the owner, publisher, manager, or foreman in the printing office of the newspaper in which the delinquent list was published, and filed with the clerk, stating the days in which, such publication was made as provided by G-. S. 1878, c. 11, § 74 (see G. S. 1894, § 1583). The defendant then produced as a witness one W. S. Woodbridge, and proved by him that he was the owner and publisher of the Lake Superior News, a newspaper published in Duluth, St. Louis county, in the years 1883 and 1884, and further showed,
The defendant also offered in evidence a notice of the expiration of the redemption period, together with proof of service thereof, and affidavit of publication; and this was objected to by plaintiff upon the ground that the assessment roll for the year 1883 did not show that the land was assessed in the name of “Unknown,” it further appearing that the notice of expiration of redemption period was addressed to “Unknown.” Under the heading “In Whose Name Assessed,” in the assessment roll, opposite the description of other land, appears the word “Unknown,” and below this word, and opposite the description of the land in question, are dots (..) or characters (“„”) to designate that the name of the owner of the land is the same as the last preceding one, viz. “Unknown.” We think that this is a sufficient designation of the fact that the owner’s name was “unknown.” Gf. S. 1878, c. 11, § 109 (G. S. 1894, § 1627). That the statute requiring notice to be given of the time when the redemption period will expire applies, although the name of the owner is stated in the assessment book as “unknown,” is settled by the recent decision of this court in State v. Halden, 62 Minn. 246, 64 N. W. 568, and need not be further discussed.
G. S. 1878, c. 11, § 73 (see G. S. 1894, § 1582), provides that, when the last publication shall have been made, the notice shall be deemed to have been served, and the court to have acquired full and complete jurisdiction to enforce against each piece or parcel of land, in said published list described, the taxes, accrued penalties, and costs. The form of the judgment to be entered in such cases is provided by statute. There is no question raised but what the judgment in this case conformed to the statute, and we must assume that it contained the recital required in said form, viz. “the notice and list required by law having been duly published as re
“Such certificate or the record thereof shall in all cases be prima facie evidence that all the requirements of the law with respect to the sale have been duly complied with and of title in the grantee therein after the time for redemption has expired; and no sale shall be set aside or held invalid unless the party objecting to the same shall prove either that the court rendering the judgment pursuant to which the sale was made had not jurisdiction to render the judgment, or that, after the judgment and before the sale, such judgment had been satisfied or that notice of. sale as required by this act was not given.”
Applying the different provisions of the law to which we have referred to this tax judgment, presumptively regular and valid, if any grounds existed for avoiding the sale, the burden of proving this rested upon the plaintiff herein, the original owner of the land. Assuming, therefore, that the judgment was presumptively valid, did the plaintiff assail its validity in any such manner’ as to show that it was rendered without jurisdiction, and was therefore void? This is a collateral attack upon a judgment presumptively regular and valid. The court had jurisdiction to render it, if, in fact, the notice and list were published according to law. It was the existence of those facts, and not the affidavit or proof thereof, that gave the court jurisdiction. The affidavit of publication is no part of the notice, nor is it required to be published. The publisher is required to file it with the clerk, in order to preserve the evidence of the due publication of the notice and delinquent list. But, prior to the publisher doing this, the court had jurisdiction of the subject-matter. The filing of this affidavit is not made a condition precedent to the entry and validity of. the tax judgment, and, the court
Some things said in Bennett v. Blatz, 44 Minn. 56, 46 N. W. 319, might seem to be in conflict with the views above expressed, and as implying that the fact of publication of the list and notice must be made to affirmatively appear by affidavit. But in that case a purported affidavit of publication was filed, and the case was argued and submitted upon the question of the sufficiency of that affidavit. The question of the presumption in favor of the validity of the judgment, or as to the burden of proof, does not seem to have been suggested, or in the mind of the court.
The plaintiff having offered no evidence sufficient to rebut the presumption in favor of the validity of the tax judgment, the judgment of the court below must be affirmed.