Case ID: iowa_110/html/0355-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Ladd, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Crawford County, Iowa, Appellant, v. H. C. Laub.
    Mulct Tax: collection: Personal suit. Under mulct law (Acte Twenty-fifth General Assembly, chapter 62, sections 1, 12, lg, imposing a tax on lands whereon intoxicating liquors are sold, and making such tax a lien to be enforced against the land in" the same manner as provided by law for the collection of ordinary taxes by tax sale, etc., a suit in equity cannot be maintained against the owner of the land, subject 1^o a lien for a delinquent mulct tax to enforce such lien, since the remedy by a sale of the land for nonpayment of the tax is adequate and.exclusive.
    
      
      Appeal from Crawford District Court. — Hon. S. M. Elwood, Judge.
    Friday, January 26, 1900.
    John Coulter operated a saloon, in which, intoxicating liquors were sold, on lot 1, in block 4, in the town of West Side, from July 19,-1894, to October 1st of the same year, in pursuance of the provisions of the mulct law. This lot was duly assessed, and the tax levied. When he ceased business, there was a balance of one hundred and nineteen dollars and sixty cents due from Coulter, which was unpaid, and constituted a lien on the lot then owned by Ellen Waldron Crow. She sold it to the defendant in 1896. The premises were offered for sale by the treasurer in June, 1895, and' repeatedly thereafter, without receiving bids. The plaintiff averred that all legal remedies for the collection of ' the tax had- proven unavailing, and prayed that a decree be entered establishing the same, with penalties, as a lien on the lot, and that special execution issue for its sale. The court sustained the defendant’s demurrer that the facts stated did not entitle the plaintiff to any relief, and, as the county ■ elected to stand on the ruling, the petition was dismissed. The plaintiff appeals.
    
    Affirmed.
    
      P. D. C. Dally for appellant.
    
      Shaw, Kuehnle & Beard for appellee.
   Ladd, J.

That the tax levied against a lot on which a liquor saloon is operated under the mulct law is a debt for which the proprietor and his sureties are personally liable in a suit on his bond was held in Marshall County v. Knoll, 102 Iowa, 573. No other remedy on the bond existed, and the right to maintain an action thereon was necessarily implied. See McInerny v. Reed, 23 Iowa, 412; Findley v. Taylor, 97 Iowa, 420; State v. Tittman, 103 Mo. 553 (15 S. W. Pep. 936)_. Here the proprietor is not a party, and the only remedy sought is against the real estate. Section 1 of chapter 62 of the Acts of the Twenty-fifth General Assembly provided for the assessment against ■ the person 'engaged in the liquor traffic, and also “upon any real prop*erty and the owner thereof, within or whereon intoxicating liquors are sold, or kept with intent to sell in this state, a tax of six hundred dollars per annum. All such taxes shall be a perpetual lien upon all property, both personal and real, used in or connected with the business.” Section 12 requires the county treasurer on the first Mondays in June and December to offer “at public sale at his office, all .lands, town lots or other real property on which taxes for the sale of intoxicating liquors have become a lien.” By section 13, “all the provisions of law now or hereafter in force for the assessment, levy and collection of taxes shall apply to and govern the taxes provided for by this act, except, as herein otherwise provided.” It is sufficient here to say that, under the general law relating to the collection of taxes, upon sale of land a certificate of sale is executed by the,treasurer to. the purchaser, and, unless redemption- is made in the meantime, on proper notice, a deed will be issued in three years-. The remedy-is thus provided in detail, and we think it. is exclusive. This court has never determined whether ordinary taxes may be collected in an action at law. On that proposition but two of the four judges concurred in City of Burlington v. Burlington & M. R. Co., 41 Iowa, 139, and City of Dubuque v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 39 Iowa, 56. The point was not involved in Shaw v. Orr, 30 Iowa, 360, nor decided in Findley v. Taylor, 97 Iowa, 420. Nor may we now determine that question, though it can be '.said the decided weight of authority is that the particular remedy provided by statute is exclusive. Water-Supply Co. v. Bell, 20 Colo. Sup. 175 (36 Pac. Rep. 1102); City of Nebraska City v. Nebraska City Hydraulic Gaslight & Coke Co., 9 Neb. 339 (2 N. W. Rep. 872); City of Caron delet v. Picot, 38 Mo. 125; Board of Com’rs of Stafford County v. First Nat. Bank of Stafford, 48 Kan. Sup. 561 (30 Pac. Rep. 22); Baldwin v. Hewett, 88 Ky. 673 (11 S. W. Rep. 803); Pierce County v. Merrill, 19 Wash. 175 (52 Pac. Rep. 854). See authorities collected in 25 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 312 et seq.; Cooley Taxation (2d ed.) 16. See, also, Black, Tax Titles, section 45; Blackwell, Tax Titles, isection 335. The same remedy is provided for enforcing the collection of the mulct tax against land as the ordinary tax. The different steps to be taken are a.s clearly defined by the revenue law as the mode under which a judgment lien may be enforced and collected is pointed out by ¡3ta,tute. In providing a specific remedy for the enforcement ©f a tax lien, applicable to m> other, the legislative intent ¿that another’ may not be resorted to is> manifest. See Sutherland Statutory Construction," section 399; Hodges v. Tama County, 91 Iowa, 578; Luce v. Fensler, 85 Iowa, 602; Cole v. City of Muscatine, 14 Iowa, 296. It must be borne &n mind that the exercise of the power of taxation is legislative, and not judicial, in character; and that, where an adequate remedy is provided by the general assembly without resort to the courts, none by court procedure should be Smplied. In Corbin v. Young, 24 Kan. 201, the court, Speaking through Brewer, J., said: “It is undoubtedly true that by statute taxes are made a lien, and that equity, when lit takes jurisdiction, enforces a lien by foreclosure and sale. But has equity any jurisdiction in: this case ? Can the holder of a tax lien foreclose it as he would a mortgage lien % We ^think not. The statute has prescribed the proceedings in reference to taxes, tax sales, redemptions, and also to secure $he rights of tax purchasers; and whenever these proceedings apply a party may not invoke the general jurisdiction and proceedings of the courts.” People v. Biggins, 96 Ill. 481; Board of Education v. Old Dominion, I. M. & M. Co. 18 W. Va. 441; Water-Supply Co. v. Bell, supra. The appellant is mistaken in asserting that a more adequate remedy would be afforded by an. action in equity. As tbe lien exists, no suit is essential to its establishment, and title may be as effectually devested by the sale of the treasurer as by /that of the sheriff. Possibly the buyers might the more xeadily bid in the one case than in the other, but this does not involve the adequacy of the remedy, but the adequacy of ¡the results of the remedy. As said im Thompson v. Allen County, 115 U. S. 550 (6 Sup. Ct. Rep 140, 29 L. Ed. 472) : “By 'inadequacy of the remedy at law’ is’here meant, not that it fails to produce the money, — that is a very usual result in the use of all remediés, — but that, in its nature or character, it is not fitted to be the end in view.” As tersely put in Rees v. City of Watertown, 19 Wall. 107 (22 L. Ed. 72): “The remedy is, in law and in theory, adequate. The difficulty is in its execution.” See People v. Biggins, supra, and Board of Education v. Old Dominion, I. M. & M. Co., supra. — Affirmed.

Granger, C. J., not sitting.