Gottstein v. Adams

RICHARDS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant Reuben N. Erickson, in an action to quiet title. The plaintiff based his right of recovery in said action upon a tax deed issued to him in consequence of a tax sale of the premises in „ question had on the twenty-seventh day of June, 1924, wherein the tax collector offered said premises for sale to the highest bidder for the amount of a tax assessed in the year 1918 and which became delinquent and were sold to the state in the month of June, 1919. It was the contention of the defendant upon the trial, and is his contention upon this appeal, that said tax deed was and is void for two reasons: First, for the reason that the procedure provided by the statute for the levy of the assessment and for the sale of whatever interest the appellant had in said premises for and on account of the defendant’s delinquency in the payment of the tax levied thereon pursuant to said assessment was not followed; and the second reason is that the lands and premises at the time of the levy of the assessment and of the proceedings had thereon leading up to such tax sale was United States government land which was in the course of being acquired by the defendant as a homestead and was not subject to state taxation and hence that the assessment of whatever interest the defendant had therein prior to the issuance of the final certificate and all subsequent proceedings for the collection of a tax thereon imposed by the state, including the issuance of said deed, were void. The facts presented to the court upon this appeal are uncontradicted

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and consist of documentary evidence and such additional facts thereto as are embraced in the stipulation of the parties. From the record as thus made up it appears that in November, 1915, the defendant Erickson made a homestead entry under the United States land laws providing therefor upon the east one-half of the east one-half of tract 147, township 13 south, range 14 east, S. B. M., in Imperial County, California. He completed his probationary period of residence and complied with other requirements of the homestead laws, and in May, 1921, became entitled to make his final proof and received his final certificate upon his said homestead entry. In October, 1924, he received his patent for the land. In the meantime and in the year 1918 the county assessor of Imperial County undertook to assess the “possessory right” of said defendant Erickson in said land at the sum of $3,200 and his improvements thereon at $400. This assessment was transferred from the assessment list to the assessment-book and a total tax computed thereon at the sum of $127.80. When the defendant later in that year failed to pay said tax it was transferred by said official to the delinquent list and at the time of such transfer the descriptive words “possessory right” as they appeared upon the assessment-book were dropped, and the delinquent tax appeared upon the delinquent list as a tax against the land. In June, 1919, the tax collector, following the procedure provided in the Political Code for the sale of delinquent taxes upon real estate, sold the said land and the improvements thereon to the state, and five years thereafter, in June, 1924, the said tax thereon remaining unpaid, the tax collector, still following said procedure, advertised the land for sale to the highest bidder and sold the same to the plaintiff herein for the total amount of the delinquency with penalties and costs for an amount aggregating $442, and later and in due course issued a deed therefor to the plaintiff herein. Under the convention by the terms of which California was admitted into the Union, as these appear in the act of admission (U. S. Stats, at Large, vol. 9, p. 452) it was provided that: