17 Pa. 42 | Pa. | 1851
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The title under which plaintiff claims is a perfect legal title, and if there is nothing more in the case, she is entitled to recover. This is conceded; but defendant contends, that as to one hundred and forty acres, part of the tract of four hundred acres in the warrantee .name of Elizabeth Clark, situated and assessed in Carbondale township, the title of plaintiff is divested by a sale for taxes, the title for the same being by several mesne conveyances vested in him. This title is also admitted to be regular in every respect, except in one particular; that before the •Treasurer’s sale, the taxes, for which it was sold, were paid in full to the proper officer. And this is the hinge on which the whole case turns. The plaintiff proved that Thomas Meredith, under whom she claims, on the first of March, 1842, paid the taxes for the years 1840, 1841, on two hundred acres of the four hundred acre tract in the warrantee name of Elizabeth Clark. She also proved that on the 10th of June, 1842, the Treasurer sold, for arrearages of the same taxes, the remaining two hundred acres as in Jefferson township, of which sixty acres were in that township, the residue, one hundred and forty acres, the property in controversy, being in the township of Carbondale. That the latter is part of the same tract is shown by the undisputed fact, that
On this question, the controversy mainly, if not altogether depends. But of this essential point no reasonable doubt can exist. It unquestionably appears, that one half was paid by the owner; the other half by the Treasurer’s sale, Winchester, under whom plaintiffs claim, becoming the purchaser. It must be remarked that it matters not by whom the taxes were paid. It is enough that they were paid by somebody. 1 W. $ Ser. 175, Strauch v. Shoemaker. Being paid, the power conferred on the Treasurer by the several Acts of Assembly, in relation to the sale of unseated land, was exhausted. The lien of the unpaid taxes being divested, it follows as a necessary consequence that the subsequent sale of the one hundred and forty acres is invalid, as well against the owner as the person who holds the prior tax title. The Treasurer has no greater authority to sell than 'he would have to sell a seated tract, or a tract that had never been assessed at all. The object of the act being answered, there is no necessity to deprive the owner of his land. The sale being without color of authority is void. Andthisistheviewtakenin Dougherty v. Dickey,4 W. & Ser. 146. A Treasurer’s sale of unseated lands is void, when it appears that the tax for which it was sold, was actually paid, although the county commissioners misconstrued the payment, and applied it to another object. The error of the officer will not deprive the owner of his land. So here, the mistake in directing a subsequent sale, cannot affect the previous title of the owner, or the purchaser at the prior Treasurer’s sale. It must be observed the plaintiff derives title from S. S. Winchester, the purchaser, at the first Treasurer’s sale. She stands precisely in his position. Now what was his title ? That he had a valid and subsisting title admits not of doubt, under the decisions of Stewart v. Shoenfelt, 13 Ser. & R. 362; Strauch v. Shoemaker, 1 W. & Ser. 175; Williston v. Colkett, 9 Barr 38; and Dougherty v. Dickey, 4 W. & Ser. 146. All the
Judgment affirmed.