144 N.Y. 234 | NY | 1894
Prior to 1891 various statutes in this state authorized the comptroller to cancel tax sales upon discovery that they were for any reason illegal or invalid. Those statutes did not specify the persons who could apply to the comptroller for such cancellations and invoke his action. (Laws *236
of 1823, chap. 26; 1 R.S. 413, secs. 89, 91; Laws of 1851, chap. 98, secs. 102, 104; Laws of 1855, chap. 427, secs. 83, 85.) InPeople ex rel. Wright v. Chapin (
The present application is made under that act, and the claim of the relator is that under its phraseology, he, as owner of the lot at the time of the sale, can make the application.
It is very clear that if, under the act, he, as owner, can make *237 the application on the ground that he was interested in the land at the time of the sale, the purchaser at the sale cannot make the application, and that thus the entire policy of the state as to such applications which had existed for seventy years has been radically changed. If the legislature had intended to provide that the owner could make the application, we think in view of the prior decisions of this court that it would have so provided in plain terms. With the language as it now appears in the act we are quite unwilling to hold that the policy of the state has been changed, and that the effect of our prior decision has been subverted. We must adhere to those decisions until by satisfactory language the legislative intent to change the law so as to authorize the application for cancellation by the owner has been more plainly manifested.
The order of the General Term should be affirmed, with costs.
All concur, except EARL, J., dissenting.
Order affirmed.