People v. Hager

CROCKETT, J. The action is to enforce the payment of an assessment levied on lands of the defendant Hager within swamp land district No. 108. A demurrer to the complaint was overruled by the court and we think correctly. The swamp land district was organized under the act of March 28, 1868, entitled “An act to provide for the management and sale of the lands belonging to the state” (Stats. 1867-68, p. 507), and section 35 of the act provides that if an assessment be delinquent, “the district attorney shall proceed at once against all delinquents in the same manner as is provided by law for the collection of state and county taxes, ’ ’ since the method provided by law for the collection of delinquent taxes on real estate was an action in the name of the people against the person delinquent, and all owners and claimants known and unknown, and against the real estate. It is clear, therefore, that the action was properly brought in the name of the people.

It is claimed, however, that there was a misjoinder of causes of action in this, that there were several distinct parcels of land of the defendant Hager which were separately assessed, [15]and the action is to enforce the lien on each tract severally. It is contended that the causes of action are several and distinct, and cannot be joined under section 64 of the Practice Act, .in force when the action was commenced.

In Dyer v. Barstow, 50 Cal. 652 (October term, 1875), we held that under the statute regulating street assessments in San Francisco, two separate and distinct causes of action founded on separate assessments could not be united in one complaint. But in the present case, though there were several parcels of land of the same owner which were severally assessed, there was but one assessment, and the cause of action is the failure to pay it. The assessment is a unit, constituting but one transaction, and is strictly analogous in this respect to a levy of state and county taxes upon different parcels of land of the same owner. In both cases there is a lien on each separate parcel for the burden imposed upon it, to be enforced by a proceeding in equity. But it has never been doubted, so far as we are aware, that under our revenue system a tax levied at the same time upon several, separate parcels of land of the same owner may be enforced in one action. This, we think, has been the uniform practice, and it would lead to a great and useless multiplicity of actions if it were otherwise. The same rule is applicable to assessments of this character.