Healton v. Morrison

LORIGAN, J.

This is an action to quiet title to lot 22, block “S'” of the Dayton Heights tract in the county of Los Angeles, plaintiff claiming title under a tax-deed from the state of California. It was stipulated on the trial that plaintiff had no other title to the lot, and that unless the tax-deed to him was valid, the title to the property is vested in the defendant, Ada R. Morrison.

The defendants had judgment, the decree requiring repayment to plaintiff (as defendants had offered in their answer) of the amount of the taxes, penalties, interests, and costs against the property, paid by plaintiff to the state on its sale of the lot to him.

It is only necessary on this appeal to consider one of the many points upon which it is claimed by respondents that the deed from the state under which plaintiff claims is void, and the judgment properly rendered in their favor.

The deed from the state, upon which appellant relied, was made by. the tax-collector of Los Angeles County on behalf of the state pursuant to a sale at public auction, noticed for and held on February 19, 1909, and the deed recited, among other things, that on February 2, 1909, the tax-collector had mailed a copy of the notice of sale “postage thereon prepaid and registered, to the party to whom the lot was last assessed next before such sale.”

[670]

Evidence was introduced on the part of respondents showing that the party to whom the lot was last assessed prior to the sale and her address as appeared from the assessment-roll, was “Mary E. Waldron, Los Angeles, Calif.”; that on February 2, 1909, the said tax-collector mailed a registered letter containing a copy of the notice of sale of said property addressed to “Mary

G.

Waldron, Los Angeles, Calif.”; that the registered letter bore a notification on the envelope “Beturn in 5 days to W. 0. Welch, County Tax-Collector, Los Angeles, Cal.” and that on the eighth day of February, 1909, said registered letter was returned to the office of said tax-collector by the postmaster. It was further proven that under the rules of the United States postal department governing the delivery of registered letters, if such a letter is not delivered or called for by the party to whom it is addressed, it is retained in the post-office for a period of thirty days, unless instructions on the envelope call for its return to the sender at an earlier date, in which case it would be returned to the latter pursuant to the instructions.