People v. San Francisco Sav. Union

By the Court, Sawyer, J.: We are unable to distinguish this case from Hurlburt v. Butenop, 27 Cal. 50, Lawrence v. Fast, 20 Ill. 341, Lane v. Bommelmann, 21 Ill. 147, and Eppinger v. Kirby, 23 Ill. 523, and those cases are conceded to be correctly decided. It is true that plaintiffs are seeking a judgment for a certain amount claimed to be due for taxes, and not seeking to sustain a tax deed. But it is necessary that there should have been a tax assessed, and that the amount should be ascertained, otherwise, there is no basis for a judgment to rest upon. There were judgments in the cases cited from the Illinois Reports, but the judgments followed the assessment rolls which were introduced in evidence to establish the tax, and were, therefore, as vague and uncertain as the rolls themselves. In this case, the existence of the tax is put in issue by the pleadings, and to entitle plaintiffs to recover, it is necessary [136]for them to show that a valid tax has been levied. The evidence, and the only legal evidence, to establish this fact, unless the curative Act of April 4, 1864, authorizes the introduction of other evidence, is the official assessment roll. Looking to that alone, we can no more say from an inspection of the roll that there is a valuation of the property expressed, or that the amount of the tax is designated, than we could upon a similar examination for the purpose of ascertaining the same fact with the view to determining the validity of a tax deed executed under a sale based upon such an assessment, without a judgment. The assessment roll would, upon its face, present the same defect in the former case as in the latter; and if it did not speak in intelligible language in the one case, it certainly would not in the other. In the assessment roll,-in the column headed “valuation,” there is nothing whatever to indicate what the figures are intended to represent, and, under. thé.‘authorities cited, we are not authorized to say they mean dollars. They are simply numerals—“ barren figures”—that are as often employed to indicate anything else that may be ..numbered as dollars, or, if money is indicated, the denominations may be either eagles, dollars, cents or mills. If a plaintiff in a suit to recover the value of property converted should allege the value of such property to be 4250, and a jury should return a verdict for the plaintiff, assessing the damages at 4250, and the judgment following the allegations of the complaint and verdict should be for 4250, without anything to indicate what the 4250 were intended to indicate, it would scarcely be claimed that the judgment could be enforced. So also, if, in a suit on the judgment, the judgment roll should be introduced in evidence, it would scarcely be contended that parol evidence would be admitted to show that the figures 4250 were intended to designate dollars. Take, for example, a promissory note in the following form. “ For value received, two — after date, I promise to pay John Smith or order, two hundred and fifty-six — with interest.” Would the Court be authorized to presume that the word years was intended to be understood