Case ID: root_1/html/0505-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Holabert v. Blakely.
    A purchaser under a collector who sold the land for payment of ta.xes, may not enter till the year is expired.
    A collector may not take the whole of a man’s Interest for a shorter term than he has In It, but must take such part as is necessary, for the whole term.
    Action of trespass for cutting the grass, eating up the feed, etc. on a certain piece of land described in the declaration.
    Plea in bar — That the plaintiff owned said land in right of his wife; that he put it into the list; that Mitchel, a collector of taxes, levied liis warrant upon it, and took it for taxes due from the plaintiff, advertised and sold it according to law to the defendant for the term of three years, and gave him a proper deed or lease of it for said term, and the plaintiff failed to pay said taxes, interest, and cost within one year, and said lease was recorded, and the defendant entered and did the facts complained) of, as he had good right to do*.
    The plaintiff • replied — That the defendant entered upon said land, and did the facts complained of within one year from the sale of said land "by the collector, and the giving of said lease. Demurrer.
    Judgment -— That the reply is sufficient.
    Two questions are made — 1st. Whether any less estate in lands than a fee, is liable to he taken for taxes? 2d. Whether if it is, the collector may take the whole, and dispose of it, for a shorter term than the debtor hath in. it, and thereby deprive him of his whole living during that period — or, whether he must not take such part only, as being disposed of during the whole of the debtor’s term in it, will be sufficient to pay the taxes, and leave the residue, provided the taxes are not sufficient to swallow up the whole?
    The statute is — That all the real estate that anyone is seized and possessed of in his own right in fee, shall be liable, and stand chargeable with all public taxes due from the owner, etc.
   The reply is no answer to the plea, because it doth not traverse the time of doing the facts, alleged in the plea.

All a man’s personal estate, with certain exceptions, is liable for the payment of his taxes — and by the statute all his real estate which he is seized and possessed of: in fee, is made liable to the payment of his taxes; of consequence all other estate which may partake of the nature of both real and personal is liable: Whenever it becomes necessary to take property from the debtor to satisfy his just debts, so much, must be taken, as is necessary to satisfy the demand; but it ought to be taken in such a manner, as will be least prejudicial and distressing to the debtor: To take the whole of the plaintiff’s interest for three years, was not necessary, and must be very distressing to him; whereas to hare taken the whole of his estate in a part, would equally hare answered the demand, and left him the means of subsisting. And this is analogous to the] proceedings upon an elegit in Great Britain, where the debt is leried and satisfied from one-lialf of the profits of the land, etc.