Case ID: ohio_9/html/0040-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "G-rimke, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Elijah F. Willey v. Philo Scoville’s Lessee.
    Where a lot of land is listed for taxation, together with eight others, and so advertised for sale, hut the assessment of tax is of one aggregate sum on all, a separate sale and conveyance of them by the county auditor is unlawful, and confers no title.
    Error to the Supreme Court of Cuyahoga. The suit in the Supreme Court was an ejectment. Lessee of Scoville v. Willey, for four acres of land in Cleveland, in the north-west corner of ten acre lot No. 32. T. 7. R. 12. The bill of exceptions made part of the record, shows that upon trial, the plaintiff deduced title from, the State of Connecticut, and rested. The defendants then set up title under a sale by the auditor of Cuyahoga, made in 1823, for the taxes of 1820, ’21, and ’23, added together. He offered the auditor’s record showing the listing of sundry ten acre lots, for taxes for those years, in the name of unknown heirs, and among others lot 32, which is in dispute; that several of said lots, including 32, had been returned delinquent, duly advertised for sale, and sold accordingly. That the certificate of ■sale of the four acres in the north-west corner of 32, was given by ■the auditor to the purchaser, upon which the land had been surveyed, and conveyed by the auditor to the defendant. It was admitted that the ten acre lots in Cleveland, in R. 12 — 7, so called, were originally numbered progressively, and had been conveyed and known by the ■designation of ten acre lots.
    *Lot 32 was listed with eight others, as follows :—
    
      Cleveland Ten Acre Lots.
    
    
      
    
    The lots were advertised in the same way, but the record shows that each lot was put up and sold for the taxes assessed upon it separately, the tax on each being one ninth of the aggregate sum. In this way four acres of lot 32 were sold to defendant.
    The plaintiff objected to the manner of listing and the sale made by the auditor, as illegal, and moved the court to exclude the defendant’s evidence from the jury, which was done. By this writ of error the ■defendant below seeks to reverse the judgment, upon the^ground that the court erred in ruling out the evidence.
    R. Hitchcock, Wilder, and Andrews, for the plaintiff in error,
    ■contended that the land in question was listed and sold according to law. In Lafferty’s Lessee v. Byers, 5 Ohio, 458, the court say, “ it is necessary the description should be such that the owner may know that the tax on his land is unpaid, and that purchasers may know or learn the precise tract intended, and he enabled to estimate its actual value.” In the present case that certainty is attained to. The list describes the numbers of the lots, well known, the quantity, and ■enters all as second rate, and conforms to the requisitions of the statute. 2 Ch. St. 1104, § 24; Lessee of M’Ginnis v. Willey, Wright, 152. The court, in Carlisle’s Lessee v. Longworth, 5 Ohio, 370, remark, that “ it is for the interest of all concerned that tax sales should be sustained whenever they can be. The greater the certainty of this description of title, the greater the value which will be attached to the land at the sale, and the less the quantity sold to pay the taxes.” The proceedings in this case are in substantial if not literal conformity with the statute, and should be sustained.
    The Reporter has been furnished with no argument for the defendant in error.
   By the Court,

G-rimke, Judge.

The proceedings in this case show a defect which is very common in tax sales. Lot 32 was listed and advertised for sale, with eight others of the same ten acre lots, by the following description. The first and second columns contain the *range and township, the third enumerates the nine lots by their number, and the fifth contains an apportionment in gross, of the tax for which they were delinquent. The law requires that the auditor should so list and advertise the land as to furnish the owner with a description of the land subject to taxation ; and that the sale shall be advertised and conducted in conformity with that rule. In this instance there was an assessment in gross of the whole amount of the tax chargeable upon the nine lots, and yet each lot was put up and sold to pay the tax on it separately. The land is not treated as an entire tract in the list, advertisement, or sale, but is so treated in the apportionment of the tax. Now it is evidpnt that the course pursued should have been throughout consistent with itself. If the lots might be treated as separate and distinct parcels of land, then the tax charged upon them should have corresponded with that fact in the description. Or, if they should be treated as one entire tract, then, although the assessment of the tax in the advertisement as one aggregate sum, would have been correct, the description of the land would itself be erroneous, and so also would the sale under which the plaintiff in error claims. In either case, the title is defective, and the court were right in ruling out the evidence..

Judgment affirmed.