99 P. 189 | Cal. | 1908
This is an action to quiet title to a lot in San Pedro, Los Angeles County. Plaintiff obtained judgment, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial defendant appeals. *745
Upon the trial it was stipulated that the title of defendant was based upon a sale of the lot made to the state of California on July 3, 1895, for delinquent state and county taxes of the year 1894; on two deeds made by the tax-collector of Los Angeles County to the state in pursuance of said sale, one undated, but recorded on July 16, 1900, and the other executed on December 12, 1902, and which was made to correct the first deed to the state under said sale of July 3, 1895; on a deed from the county tax-collector on behalf of the state of California to defendant made on March 1, 1902, and a second correction deed to the state by the tax-collector of Los Angeles County, dated December 31, 1903, but not recorded. It was further stipulated that the title to the property was in plaintiff, unless by virtue of the tax-sale and said deeds to the state and the deed from the state to him, title was established in the defendant.
The various tax-deeds referred to in the stipulation were introduced in evidence and the court declared the deeds to the state to be invalid, and hence the deed to defendant from the state based thereon also void.
The decision of the court was doubtless based upon the failure of the tax-collector in the original deed to the state to recite therein, as required by the provisions of section 3771 of the Political Code, as amended March 28, 1895 (Stats. 1895, p. 327), the time when the right of the owner of the land to redeem from the sale had expired, the court holding that for this failure said original deed to the state was void, and hence the state had no title to the property when, on March 1, 1902, it conveyed it to the defendant.
When this action was tried in the superior court, the case ofBaird v. Monroe,
It is insisted, however, by respondent, that the fact that the validating act operates retroactively cannot aid in sustaining the deed by the state to the defendant, because that deed was made by the state to him before the validating act went into effect. In other words, he insists that as the deed to defendant by the state was made on March 1, 1902, when it had no title, and before the passage of the validating act, such deed by it was inoperative to vest any title to the lot in defendant, and any subsequent or additional title which the state acquired by virtue of the validating act could not inure to the benefit of the title of defendant.
Baird v. Monroe did not involve this point, as in that case it was admitted that one of the defendants had regularly succeeded to the title, if the tax proceeding there involved could be sustained. But the contention of respondent has been in principle decided against him in the subsequent case of Fox v. Townsend,
In principle there can be no difference in the effect of the validating act as far as feeding and perfecting the title of a *747 purchaser from the state before its passage, and a correction deed to the state subsequently made, which it is held has that effect. They both operate to do so.
It was held in Baird v. Monroe that at the expiration of the five years from the date of the sale to the state, the state was entitled to a deed; it was then equitably the owner of the property. If, therefore, the deed from the tax-collector, which the law requires shall be made by him to the state, is ineffectual to convey to it the legal title by reason of the admission of certain necessary recitals, its equitable title still exists, and when a validating act has confirmed and legalized the original deed to the state, the title so acquired inures to the benefit of a purchaser from the state taking his conveyance prior to the passage of the act.
In the case of Schamblin v. Means,
This conclusion renders it unnecessary to pass upon the validity of the correction deeds to the state made subsequent to the sale of the lot by the state to defendant. The validating act operated to vest title to the property in the state as of the date when the originally defective deed to it was made, and as the title inured to the benefit of defendant under his conveyance from the state, any consideration of the correction deeds becomes unimportant. The curative act validated the original defective conveyance to the state, vested in it the title to the lot in question as of the date of the original deed by the tax-collector to it, and the title so validated inured to the benefit of defendant independent of any correction deeds.
In this view, the conclusion reached by the trial court against the validity of the title of defendant, asserted under *748 the deed by the state to him of March 1, 1902, was erroneous, and the order denying the motion for a new trial is reversed and the cause remanded.
Shaw, J., Angellotti, J., Sloss, J., Melvin, J., and Henshaw, J., concurred.