139 N.Y. 240 | NY | 1893
[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] *242 The point urged by the relator, that the owner of land sold for taxes is not entitled under the statute to apply to the comptroller for the cancellation of a tax sale, and that the comptroller has no jurisdiction to entertain and act upon an application by the owner for such cancellation, is, if well taken, decisive of the case and requires a reversal of the proceedings.
The decision of the comptroller now under review, which canceled tax sales of 1871, 1881 and 1885, of lands in Hamilton county, was rendered on the application of the Adirondack Railway Company, made Nov. 17, 1891, as owners of the lands, by grant from the Adirondack Company. The application was made on the ground that the lands in question were, during the years in which the taxes were assessed, upon which the lands were sold, exempt from taxation under chap. 236 of the Laws of 1863, and subsequent statutes. The comptroller entertained the petition of the Adirondack Railway Company, and against the protest and objection of the relator, the Hamilton Park Company, the grantee of the purchasers on the tax sales, rendered his decision Dec. 30, 1891, canceling the several sales in the years mentioned on the ground stated in the petition and on the additional ground embraced in the general clauses of the petition, that the board of supervisors of Hamilton *245 county had omitted to extend on the tax rolls of the town of Long Lake the taxes for which the several tax sales were made, before delivering the rolls to the supervisor of the town.
The action of the comptroller was taken, therefore, upon the application of the owner of the lands at the time of the several tax sales, or his grantees, and the right of the owner of lands sold for taxes to institute the proceedings for cancellation, and of the comptroller to adjudicate on his application the respective rights of the owner and of a purchaser on a tax sale, is distinctly presented and must be determined.
The question is not wholly new in this court. In the case ofPeople ex rel. Wright v. Chapin (
On the other hand, if the provisions in the act of 1855, as to cancellation of tax sales, were intended merely to afford a remedy to the purchaser to recover back the money paid on an invalid sale, the act established a consistent system, easily understood and productive of no injustice. The purchaser by his application consents to a cancellation of the tax. The state by its officers considers and passes upon the application, and is the only party, other than the purchaser, interested. The owner of the land cannot complain if the sale is vacated, and if the application is denied his position is not changed. The county which may be required to re-levy the amount refunded, is one of the municipal divisions of the state, and is represented in the transaction by the state officers. If the comptroller acts under section 83 on his own motion, and vacates the sale before the conveyance is made, the purchaser gets back his money, and he cannot complain because he purchased subject to the right of the comptroller to exercise this power.
The construction of the act of 1855, established by the decision in People ex rel. Wright v. Chapin (supra), was re-asserted in the case of People ex rel. Ostrander (supra), in which RAPALLO, J., said: "The intent was to protect the title of the purchaser in case the sale was found to be ineffectual to give him title." In the subsequent case of People v. Turner
(
The comptroller, as authority for exercising this jurisdiction, relied upon chap. 217 of the Laws of 1891, which amended section 2 of chap. 448 of the Laws of 1855, which itself was an amendment of the law of 1855. The act of 1885 enacted a rule of evidence by making certificates of tax sales and a conveyance thereunder in certain cases, and after a certain time, conclusive evidence of the validity of the sale and of the prior proceedings, whereas, by the act of 1855, a conveyance by the comptroller was made presumptive evidence only. In the opinion in People ex rel.Wright v. Chapin (supra), given on the motion for re-argument, the judge delivering the opinion, referring to the statute of 1885, stated, in substance, that it did not extend the power of the comptroller in respect to cancellation beyond that given by the act of 1855. Section 1 of the act of 1885 amends section 65 of the act of 1855, the main purpose of the amendment being, as has been stated, to create a conclusive presumption of regularity in the cases mentioned. It confers no new power upon the comptroller in express language. The section is very obscure, and it may afford ground for an argument that the legislature, by the concluding clause in the section, intended to give the owner a remedy to apply to the comptroller for cancellation where the taxes had been paid before the sale, or where the land taxed was not taxable. On the other hand, the intention may have been not to preclude the purchaser from applying for cancellation in *249 these cases, the objections being fundamental, and which, it might be claimed, would not be reached by a curative statute, or by a statute enacting a conclusive rule of evidence in support of the purchaser's title. Section 2 of the statute of 1885 was the one amended by the statute of 1891, and the original section in the act of 1885 contained nothing bearing upon the point we are now considering. The act of 1891 added to the original section this clause, which is the one relied upon to sustain the action of the comptroller in this case: "All applications heretofore or hereafter made to the comptroller for the cancellation of any tax sale by any person interested in the event thereof, shall be heard and determined by him, and his determination shall be subject to review by certiorari or otherwise." It will be observed that there is no express grant of power in this clause to the comptroller to entertain and adjudicate upon the validity of tax sales on the application of the owner of lands affected thereby. The act of 1891 was passed several years after our decision in People ex rel. Wright v. Chapin, which may be presumed to have been known by the legislature. It is quite significant that if the legislature intended to confer the additional power upon the comptroller to cancel tax sales upon the application of the owner, the intention was not expressed in unequivocal terms. The clause quoted from the act of 1891 contains two new affirmative provisions. It makes it imperative upon the comptroller to hear and determine applications for cancellation, which, prior to our decision in People ex rel.Ostrander v. Chapin, was regarded by him as discretionary, and next, it gave in express terms a remedy by certiorari to review his decision. The purchaser, if the right of cancellation is still confined as in the act of 1855, gained these advantages and his rights were relieved from the obscurity which before attended them. It is, however, upon the language of the act of 1891, directing the comptroller to hear an application for cancellation "by any person interested in the event thereof," upon which the defendants rely as extending the power of the comptroller so as to embrace application by the owners of the *250 property sold for taxes, as well as purchasers. Looking to the policy of the act of 1855, in conferring power on the comptroller to cancel tax sales, which was to encourage bidding and to provide a speedy and summary remedy in favor of purchasers to recover back the purchase money, where the purchaser could acquire no title by reason of the invalidity of the proceedings, the words "interested in the event thereof," in the act of 1891, would most naturally refer to persons interested in the refunding of the money paid, which was the primary object of applications for cancellation under the act of 1855. The cancellation of the tax sale and the refunding of the money paid thereon were to be simultaneous acts, and an owner whose land had been illegally sold for taxes, although he might have an interest in having the cloud upon his title removed, did not need the remedy by cancellation to preserve his rights, and he was not interested in the refunding to the purchaser of the money paid on the sale, and so not in the event of the application for cancellation in its main purpose.
We are of opinion that the statute of 1891 has not changed the prior rule, and that now, as before, the owner is not entitled to the remedy by cancellation. The construction of the obscure legislation is not free from difficulty. If the legislature should deem it wise to extend the scope of the powers of the comptroller to the determination of controversies between the owner and purchaser of land sold for taxes, new and additional legislation should be enacted containing provisions which shall insure a deliberate hearing upon competent evidence, with the usual safeguards which attend ordinary judicial trials.
These views lead to a reversal of the proceeding below, and costs should be awarded to the relator in all courts.
All concur, except EARL and MAYNARD, JJ., dissenting.
Order and judgment reversed. *251