Davis v. Peck

SLOSS, J.

This action was brought to quiet plaintiff’s title to four lots of land in the county of Los Angeles. The defendant, M. P. Brady, substituted in place of Alice J. Peek, one of the original defendants, answered, asserting ownership of lot 30, block 72, of the town of Burbank, one of the four lots described in the complaint. The court found that the defendant Brady was the owner of said lot, and that plaintiff had no right, title, or interest therein. A judgment in favor of said defendant, quieting her title to the lot, followed. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The evidence showed that the respondent was the owner of the lot unless her title was divested by tax proceedings culminating in a deed from the state to the plaintiff’s predecessor. The plaintiff offered in evidence a deed, dated July 2, 18-98, whereby the tax-collector of the county of Los Angeles undertook to convey the lot to the state after default in the payment of taxes for the year 1902, and a deed, dated June 10, 1909, from the tax-collector purporting to convey the lot to T. A. Davis as purchaser from the state. There was no evidence, outside of the deeds themselves, to support the validity of the tax proceedings.

The respondent argues various grounds to sustain the eonelusion of the court below that the proceedings were not such

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as to transfer respondent’s title to appellant. It will not be necessary to consider more than one of these grounds.

Section 3-897 of the Political Code provides that, before selling property which has been sold to the state for taxes, the tax-collector shall give a notice of sale by publication, and shall “mail a copy of said notice, postage thereon prepaid and registered, to the party to whom the land was last assessed next before the sale, at his last known post-office address.” Compliance with the requirement of mailing, unless the last post-office address is unknown, is essential to the validity of a sale by the state under section 3897.

(Smith

v.

Furlong,

160 Cal. 522, [117 Pac. 527];