Redman v. Warden

[637]

TYLER, P. J.

Action to quiet title. The pleadings are in the usual form, plaintiffs alleging title and possession in themselves and an asserted claim of estate or interest in the property by defendants adverse to them without right, and defendants denying the allegations of the complaint and setting up ownership in defendant Grace P. Warden by virtue of tax-title deeds from the tax collector of the county of Los Angeles.

At the trial plaintiffs in support of their claim introduced the deed from their grantor in evidence, proved possession, and also proved that plaintiff Pearl H. Jarrett held a mortgage lien against the property. Plaintiffs rested and defendant’s tax deeds were then considered in evidence. Defendants introduced no other evidence in support of their claim of title, relying solely upon the

prima facie

ease made by these deeds, which recite that the property in question was sold for taxes levied in the year 1916. Plaintiffs, for the purpose of rebutting the

prima facie

case arising upon the tax deeds, introduced certain evidence going to show the illegality of part of the tax for which the property was sold. They -proved by uncontradicted evidence that the property in controversy is situated in what is known as Redman Elementary School District; that it was assessed for taxation in the year 1916; that among the taxes so assessed for that year was included a tax for the support of the county free library; that at the time of the assessment the Redman School District was not a branch of the free county library, this evidence being offered on the theory that such district, by virtue of the maintenance by it of a free library, was exempt from the tax assessed against it in 1916 for the support of the county free library (1 Gen. Laws [Deering] 1923, p. 982). They also proved that in the levy and assessment of a tax for the redemption of a bonded indebtedness created by the Antelope Union High School District one of the elementary school districts which comprised it, to wit, the Esperanza School District, was either inadvertently or designedly omitted, and the whole tax was levied and assessed upon the remainder of said high school district, of which the Redman School District was a part, the effect of which omission being to increase the proportion of such high school district tax assessed against the plaintiff’s property.