125 Minn. 491 | Minn. | 1914
Plaintiff was the owner of certain real estate in Crow Wing county, Minnesota. April 15, 1907, he executed and delivered a deed, which was duly recorded, describing the land by its government description but “reserving * * * all ores, mines, minerals, fossils, mineral oils and mineral paints which may be in or upon said lands, with the privilege of searching, digging, boring, shafting and mining therefor on any and every part of said premises * * * together also with the right of building, maintaining as long as needed and removing when not needed, any buildings, structures, etc., needed for such mining operations.” There was a provision for the payment of damages to any buildings of the grantee, or injury to the soil for cultivation, caused by any mining operations.
Plaintiff brought this action to determine adverse claims to the interest reserved by him in the deed. Admittedly he still owns this interest unless his title was divested by the sale of the land to the state for the taxes of 1907, and the expiration of the time for redemption. Defendant is the owner of this tax title, through assignment from the state, and claimed to have acquired thereby the title of plaintiff to the mineral rights reserved by the deed. The decision of the trial court was that plaintiff was the owner of these mineral rights. Judgment was entered accordingly, and defendant appealed.
The question involved is whether the tax proceedings, in ivhich the land was described by its government description, without in terms including or excluding the mineral rights held by another than the owner of the surface, operated to assess and levy a tax upon such mineral rights and to convey such rights to the purchaser at the tax sale.
If the tax was assessed and levied upon the entire land, including the mineral rights, and if the taxing officers might legally so assess
If, however, the description of the property in the tax proceedings .and certificate covered only the estate of the owner of the surface, and not that of the owner of the mineral rights, the taxes were not a lien upon the estate of the latter, and the judgment did not attach to or the certificate convey such interest.
It is well settled in this state, as elsewhere, that the owner of land may segregate the mineral estate from the rest of the land, and convey either interest without the other. It is also clear that the reservation in this case was valid. Carlson v. Minnesota Land & Colonization Co. 113 Minn. 361, 129 N. W. 768; Buck v. Walker, 115 Minn. 239, 132 N. W. 205, Ann. Cas. 1912D, 882. As stated by Chief Justice Start in the Buck case: “Contracts excepting ores and minerals from grants of land with a reservation of the right to enter upon the portion thereof granted are in accordance with long-established usage and have been invariably held by the courts to be valid.” As stated by Mr. Justice Lewis in the Carlson case: “The owner may convey any part of real estate. He may convey some particular deposit or stratum and retain the surface, or he may convey a part or all of the mineral strata or deposits and retain the surface. Such strata or de
Many of the authorities cited, notably the Pennsylvania and Illinois cases, hold that where there is a divided ownership there must be a divided taxation. The statutes of several states provide that the interests in such cases shall be separately taxed. We do not, however, refer to these cases for the purpose of supporting the view that prior to the enactment of chapter 161, p. 196, Laws 1905, a separate assessment and taxation was obligatory in the sense that an attempt to tax the two interests together would necessarily make a judgment void on collateral attack. We place emphasis on the state of the law at the time this statute was enacted as an aid in ascertaining the object of the legislature. Chapter 161, p. 196, Laws 1905, in force at the time of the assessment and levy in question, and now, (G. S. 1913, § 1973), reads as follows:
“That whenever any mineral, gas, coal, oil, or other similar in*495 terests in real estate are owned separately and apart from and independently of the rights and interests owned in the surface of sucn real estate, such mineral, gas, coal, oil or other similar interests may be assessed and taxed separately from such surface rights and interests in said real estate, and may be sold for taxes in the same manner and with the same effect as other interests in real estate are sold for taxes.”
As we have stated, it was the unquestioned law at the time this statute was passed, that mineral interests in real estate owned separately and apart from interests in the surface, were real estate and might be assessed and taxed separately from the surface interests, and “sold for taxes in the same manner and with the same effect as other interests in real estate are sold for taxes.” Before the statute, it was not only proper to tax the mineral interest separately, but it was plainly an irregularity to assess to one owner as one property both the surface and the mineral rights, when they were owned separately. The legislature must be credited with some object in passing the law. Whether this object was to make it obligatory to assess and tax mineral rights separately from the interest in the surface, or whether it was to declare and make clearer the already clear common law on the subject may be open to doubt, but in either case there is a statutory direction to the taxing officers how to proceed when the interests are owned separately. It is not necessary to hold, as we view the case, that under this statute an assessment and tax against both interests together is fatal to the jurisdiction of the court to render a judgment and that therefore the owner of either interest who has failed to defend in the proceedings can attack the judgment collaterally. But it was the duty of the taxing officers, under the statute, as well as under the common law, to assess and tax separately the interests of plaintiff and those of the owner of the surface. The deed separating the mineral rights from the surface rights was of record at the time the tax was levied and became a lien. It is to be presumed that the taxing officers intended to follow the law. These considerations are helpful in reaching a decision whether the description of the property used in the tax proceedings includes the mineral rights. It contains no mention of any such right or interest. Mani
It does not seem important that the mineral estate may have escaped taxation. That the assessor omitted to assess this interest, does not influence the decision in the present case. Nor do we regard as vital the fact that there may be difficulties in arriving at the true value of mineral rights. There is nothing whatever in the law or in this opinion that in any way tends to permit the owner of a separate mineral estate to escape paying taxes on his property.
We fully appreciate that in Minnesota the tax is upon the land, and that its ownership is not the material thing. But it is neverthe
Judgment affirmed.