Judge v. Warden

STURTEVANT, J. Barney Judge filed a petition to register certain lands under the Land Title Act. (2 Deering’s General Laws 1923, p. 3611.) The defendant Grace P. Warden appeared and answered. A trial was had before the trial court sitting without a jury. The trial court made findings of fact in favor of the petitioner. From a judgment entered thereon the defendant Grace P. Warden has appealed under section 953a of the Code of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiff Barney Judge holds a purported tax title. If the tax deed under which he claims is valid, the judgment should be affirmed, otherwise it should be reversed.

The defendant contends that the property was sold for an excessive tax. In making this point she called to our attention that for the purpose of aiding the holding of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition certain amendments to the constitution were made and certain statutes were enacted authorizing the raising of the sum of $1,250,000 for the fiscal year 1913 by the levy of a direct tax; that prior to malting the levy the state board of equalization forwarded its order to the board of supervisors fixing the rate of two mills on each $100 of taxable property of Los Angeles County; that said fraction was adopted by the board of supervisors in computing the rate for state and county taxes for the year 1913, and that thereafter the tax was levied and collected as so computed; ^hat the amount that should have been collected pursuant to the' constitution and the statutes was $1,250,000; that the amount that was actually collected was $1,270,000, and that there was therefore collected $20,000 in excess of the amount required. Dividing $20,000 by the amount of the combined assessment-rolls of the state, the defendant ascertains her multiple and by multiplying the asessed valuation of the lands in suit by that multiple she obtains what she claims to be an excessive tax. Thereupon she cites and relies on Boston Tunnel Co. v. McKenzie, 67 Cal. 485 [8 Pac. 22]; Knox v. Higby, 76 Cal. 264 [18 Pac. 381]; Buknall v. Story, 36 Cal. 67. The cases are not in point. Each one involved an instance where one of the public officers made an error in computing a tax or in setting down on the tax records the amount of the computation. The record before us shows no error. The tax was levied in all respects as required [729]by law so far as this record shows. However, it transpired that the allowance made for delinquency was too liberal and more money was actually collected than the public officers were attempting to collect. No authority has been called to our attention which supports the contention of the defendant. If the point is good it probably applies to a majority of the funds for which each annual levy is made. This is so because it can be seen at once that the computation of the body making the levy of an ad valorem tax must at all times be an approximation. It may result in collecting a few dollars too much or a few dollars too little. But the error, if any, is not actionable.