Klumpke v. Baker

HARRISON, J.

Action to quiet title. Judgment was rendered in favor of the defendants, and the plaintiff has appealed from an order denying a new trial;

The plaintiffs title is based upon certain tax deeds for different portions of the premises described in the complaint, three

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of the deeds being -for the .taxes thereon for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1883, and one for the succeeding year. The deeds were all executed to the plaintiff July 13, 1886, and this action was commenced July 11, 1891. Upon the introduction of the deeds in evidence the plaintiff rested. Unless, therefore, some evidence was introduced on the part of the defendant which had the effect to impeach the validity of these deeds, the plaintiff was entitled to judgment. (Pol. Code, sec. 3788.)

The defendants offered certain evidence to the effect that the lots for which the deeds had been-executed had not been assessed to their respective owners, two of said lots having been assessed to the defendant George H. Baker, whereas they were, at the time of the assessment, the property of his wife, Mary A. Baker, and stood of record in her name. Evidence was also introduced to the effect that each of these lots included a portion of a lot belonging to an adjacent owner. The respondents contend that by reason of the assessments thus made the tax deeds are entirely inoperative and confer no title upon the plaintiff.

'Section 3628 of the Political Code provides that the assessor shall assess the property “to the person by whom it was owned or claimed, or in whose possession or control it was at 12 O’clock M. of the first Monday of March next preceding; but no mistake in the name of the owner, or supposed owner, of real property shall render the assessment thereof invalid.” The assessment is not against the owner, but is of the property, and that must be correctly described. The name of the owner of the property assessed is an incidental provision for the sake of convenience, but a failure to give the correct name of the owner is declared by the statute not to impair the assessment. In