Low v. Lewis
Low v. Lewis
Opinion of the Court
The. lot in controversy is one of what are known as the “City Slip Lots, ” in the City and County of San Francisco. These lots were sold in 1853 under what purported to be an ordinance of said city. Subsequently it was decided by this Court in several cases that the alleged ordinance was a nullity, and that no title passed to the purchasers at the sale. The lot in controversy was purchased at this sale by one Buchanan at the price of sixteen thousand seven hundred dollars, which was fully paid. On the 17th April, 1862, the Legislature passed an Act which authorized the Board of Supervisors of said city and county to “ settle, compound,
If the tax deed put in evidence by the defendant was valid and operative to carry the title, the judgment is erroneous. It does not appear on what ground the Court below held the deed to be inoperative; nor have the counsel on either side discussed its legal effect. In the absence of aid from counsel on this point, we are left to surmise on what ground, if any, the deed is open to attack. When the lot was sold for taxes it was the property of the City and County of San Francisco, and it appears from the recitals of the deed that it was sold ‘‘for taxes due to the State of California, and to the County of San Francisco.” The property of a municipal corporation is not liable to taxation for municipal purposes. It cannot tax its own property. (Fall v. Marysville, 19 Cal. 391.) The tax for which the lot was sold, being illegal and void, the sale was a nullity, and the tax deed conveyed no title. (Hardenburgh v. Kidd, 10 Cal. 402; Bucknall v. Story, 36 id. 67.)
In making the deed to the plaintiff, the city and county was therefore dealing with its own property. The defendant had no interest in the question, whether the plaintiff was the assignee of Buchanan, and as such entitled to the conveyance. The parties in interest being satisfied on this point, a stranger to the transaction and to the title, having no privity with either party, will not be allowed to question the existence of a fact on which the parties in interest have acted in the exercise of a power conferred by statute. It was, therefore, not incumbent on the plaintiff to prove the assignment from Buchanan, otherwise than by the recitals of the deed.
Judgment and order affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- CHARLES L. LOW v. JOHN B. LEWIS
- Cited By
- 12 cases
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- Published
- Syllabus
- Tax on Pbopeety of Municipal Coepobation.— The property of a municipal corporation is not liable to taxation for municipal purposes. Idem.—A municipal corporation cannot tax its own property. When Tax Deed is Void.—If a tax is illegal and void a sale under it is a nullity and a deed of property sold for such a tax conveys no title. Ejectment Against Stbangee to the Title.—A defendant in ejectment who is a stranger to the title, cannot object, in a case where the plaintiff derives his title from a municipal corporation, that the plaintiff has not proved otherwise than by the recitals in his deed, that he was one of the parties to whom the corporation was permitted by law to sell. Defense by Stbangee to Title in Ejectment. — If a municipal corporation is by law allowed to sell its realty to certain persons or their assigns, and conveys to an assignee, who brings ejectment against a stranger to the title, the defendant, on the trial, will not be allowed to question the fact that the plaintiff was such assignee.