Case ID: mass_14/html/0154-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      The Court\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

* John Blossom versus Nathan Cannon.
    In support of a title to land sold by a collector for the non-payment of taxes, proof of the return of the valuation and of a copy of the assessment to the town clerk’s office is indispensable.
    This was a writ of entry on the demandant’s own seisin. Trial was had upon the general issue, October term, 1815, before Thatcher, J. The demandant’s title was derived from a source not questioned by the tenant, who claimed to hold the demanded premises under a collector’s sale, for non-payment of taxes assessed thereon in the year 1799. Sundry objections were taken at the trial to the evidence offered in behalf of the tenant; all which were overruled by the judge, and a verdict being returned, pursuant to the judge’s direction, in favor of the tenant, exceptions were filed by the demandant.
    The two objections which were principally relied on by the de mandant’s counsel were, — 1. That there was no evidence of the collector’s being sworn ; 2. That it did not appear that the assessors had caused their assessment and a copy of the invoice or valuation to be lodged in the office of the town clerk, as required by Siat. 1785, c. 50, <§> 1. The collector in this case was appointed by the assessors of the town, pursuant to the provision in the Stat. 1785, c. 46, in the place of the person originally elected to that office, who had died before perfecting his collection.
    It was argued for the tenant, that a collector thus appointed ivas not required by law to be sworn; and as to this objection, as well as the other respecting the assessment and valuation being placed on the town records, it was urged that these were matters over which a purchaser at a collector’s sale had no control, and that whatever the effect might be as between the assessors and collector and the persons taxed, the neglect of duty on the part of officers ought not to affect the title of * one who had purchased at a public sale by an authorized officer of the law. And if evidence of these facts was necessary to the support of the tenant’s defence, it was well left to the jury, by the judge at the trial, to presume, at this distance of time, that the requirements of the law had been complied with by the officers in question. 
    
    
      
       10 Mass. Rep. 113, Colman & Al. vs. Anderson.
    
   The Court

were of opinion that, if a collector thus appointed was required to be sworn, it was competent for the jury to presume that fact. But the returning the valuation and a copy of the assessment to the town clerk, being a salutary and necessary regulation, essential to the citizens in general, can in no case be dispensed with. As there was no evidence offered to this point, and as the judge charged the jury generally, that the proof produced by the tenant was sufficient in law to establish his title to the demanded premises, the cause must be sent to a new trial. But considering that many years have passed since the transactions referred to, and that the present tenant was not a party to them, and had no control over them, the jury may be permitted to presume, from circumstances, that the assessors did not neglect so important a part of their official duty.

Mellen and Boutelle for the demandant.

Rice and Orr for the tenant,

New trial granted. 
      
      
        [Thayer vs. Steams, 1 Pick. 482.—Ed.]