2 Pa. 22 | Pa. | 1845
— A defendant in ejectment, claiming title under ' a treasurer’s sale for tire payment of taxes, is not entitled to recover compensation for the value of his improvements, if his title be defeated, on the ground that the land was not unseated at the time the taxes were assessed upon it, and for payment of which it was sold. Nor is a subsequent purchaser in any better situation than the vendee of the treasurer. The point was ruled on the impregnable ground, that the tract being seated, the treasurer has no authority to sell, and, consequently, the-title of the purchaser Avas null and void for Avant of jurisdiction. Unseated land alone is liable to be sold for payment of taxes. Taxes on seated tracts, and other species of property, are personal charges against the owner. This principle was ruled in three cases, Chew v. Young, McCall v. Lanmer, McKee v. Lambertin, reported in 2 Watts & Serg. 107, and AA’ould be decisive of this case, but for two acts of the legislature, one dated the 12th April, 1842, the other, the 11th March, 1843, which it is supposed alters the situation of the parties. This renders it necessary to investigate the application of these acts to the case in hand. The latter act (which it is most convenient to examine first) is entitled, “An act to repeal the Nicholson Court of Pleas, and to release the lien of the Commonwealth on the estate of John Nicholson, deceased.”' In the second section, the provisoes in the 20th section of the supplement to the act, (the act first cited,) authorizing the governor to incorporate the Tioga Navigation Company, passed the 12th April, 1842, are repealed, and the proA'isions of the 20th section of the same act,.
It must be recollected that when this case was in review before, it was decided, after solemn argument, that the defendant on the same state of facts was not entitled to payment for the value of his improvements, — that he had no claim whatever against the plaintiff: it is now urged, that by an omnipotent legislative fiat he has a legal and constitutional right to full compensation. With every respect for that branch of the government, we must take leave to deny that any such authority as is claimed belongs to the legislative power of the state. Thus, suppose a suit is brought by A. against B., and the court should decide that A. was entitled to nothing, would it be competent for the legislature to interfere, and by the flimsy pretext of giving a construction to a previous act on which the question may depend, on the statute of usury, for example, or to a principle of the common law, which amounts to the same thing, enable A. to recover the full amount of his claim. And yet, stripped of the specious pretences with which the argument of the defendant’s counsel is clothed, it is precisely what is attempted here. It is proposed, by the substitution of legislative will for right, to compel the plaintiff to pay for improvements, when it is clear, so far as judicial determination can make it so, he was not under an obligation, either legal or moral, to do so, before the passage of the act. In other words, it is seriously contended that the legislature, in the plenitude of their generosity, have transferred the money of the plaintiff into the pocket of the defendant. The furthest the court has gone is in O’Conner v. Warren, 4 Watts & Serg. 223, where it is held, that until the judiciary has fixed the meaning of a doubtful law, upon which right has become vested, it may be explained by legislative enactment. But in that case it is strongly intimated, if not directly decided, that where the construction is not doubtful, particularly where it has been under judicial cognisance, no subsequent act of the legislature, whether it assumes the form of an explanatory act, or whatever shape it may take, as using the words “ it shall not be construed,” which is now the usual formula, it cannot affect or change previous rights already fixed and settled. Explanatory acts must be construed as operating on future cases, alone, except where they are designed to explain a doubtful statute, in which cases they deserve and always will receive the most respectful attention from the judicial branch of the government. It would be a libel on a co-ordinate branch of the government to suppose, without express words, they intended to commit so great and manifest injustice. In Bedford v. Shilling, 4 Serg. & Rawle, 401, which was a case that involved the question whether the