65 N.Y.S. 543 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1900
The trial court determined that the plaintiff had title to an undivided two-thirds of the lands sought to be partitioned and the International Paper Company was the owner of the remaining third ; that William McEchron, who claimed to own the two-thirds interest which the court found was owned by plaintiff, was in fact the owner of no interest whatsoever in such lands. And this conclusion was reached by the learned court through holding that the deed from the State to McEchron was invalid, because the sale was for taxes which in fact had been paid prior to the sale. If the proof established the fact that the taxes had all been paid prior to the sale, the deed to McEchron would, in my opinion, have been void. The Comptroller is authorized to sell lands for unpaid taxes. He has no authority to sell except for unpaid taxes. This power is given to the Comptroller solely to enforce the payment or collection of a tax imposed for a public use, and the power must necessarily vanish with the tax. The learned counsel for appellants urge that the Tax Law, as amended in 1896 (Chap. 908, § 132), treated as a Statute of Limitations and applied in this case, effectually cuts off the right to show that there were no taxes unpaid when the sale was made, and, in this way, a void deed of conveyance, he urges, is made conclusively valid. I do not think that the Legislature has intended to so declare, or has in fact so declared. Nor do I think the Constitution permits the Legislature to so declare. In Cromwell v. MacLean (123 N. Y. 491) Peckham, J., uses this language: “ From People v. Turner (117 N. Y. 227) and Ensign v. Barse (107 id. 329), back through our reports, I have not been able to find a case which points to the existence of a power on the part of the legislature to convey the title of a man’s property from him to another by a mere exercise of the legislative will.” Referring to the Cromwell case and Ensign case, it is true that Cullen, J., in Meigs v. Roberts (162 N. Y. 378), says these were strictly cases “ of a retrospective statute, for no period of time was given within which any party affected could assert his rights.” He also says: “ This principle does not apply to a Statute of Limitations, for such a statute will bar any right, however high the source from which it may be deduced, provided that a reasonable time is given a party to enforce his right.” And still I do not believe that the court of last resort meant to declare that a short Statute of Limitations could create a
The only other material question which the case presents, as I look at it, relates to the proof of payment of the taxes prior to the sale. The learned trial court found as a fact that the Comptroller sold at the tax sale of 1871 an undivided two-thirds of the lands described in the complaint to Warren Curtis,.and that defendant
Upon the proofs the plaintiff had no interest in or title to the lands in question, and the complaint should have been dismissed. The interlocutory judgment should be reversed, with costs.
All concurred; Parker, P. J., Merwin and Smith, JJ., in the result.
Judgment reversed on the law and facts and new trial granted, costs to abide the event.