Case ID: me_74/html/0101-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "AppletoN, C. J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Inhabitants of Liberty, in review, vs. William Hurd.
    Waldo.
    Opinion August 2, 1882.
    
      Taxes. Collector.
    
    When a collector of taxes arrests a tax-payer for non-payment of a tax whicli liad already been once paid, and is thereupon paid a second time to procure a release from the arrest, the town is not liable for the arrest, nor for the money while in the hands of the collector.
    ON REPORT.
    An action of review. The original action was assumpsit for1 money had and received, upon which judgment was rendered on default, for twenty-two dollars and eighty-three cents debt and ten dollars and sixty-three cents costs. A review was granted at January term, 1882.
    The material facts are stated in the opinion.
    
      William II. Fogler, for the plaintiffs,
    cited: Small v. Dan-ville, 51 Maine, 359 ; Mitchell v. Dockland, 52 Maine, 118 ; Barbour v. Ellsworth, 67 Maine, 294; Davis v. Bangor, 42 Maine, 522 ; Dunbar v. Boston, 112 Mass. 75 ; Smith v. Bead-field, 27 Maine, 148; Parsons v. Monmouth, 70 Maine, 262 ; Billings v. Monmouth, 72 Maine, 174; Belfast National Bank v. Stockton, 72 Maine, 522.
    
      J. W. Knowlton, for the defendant.
    
      Towns have two officers or agents — a collector and a treasurer. Money paid for taxes to either is paid to the town and is in the possession of the town when in the hands of either agent.
    In Briggs v. Lewiston, 29 Maine, 472, TeNNEY, «J., says, "the money paid to the jailor was only another mode of paying it to the collector and was in effect paying it to the town. It was then in the hands of the town, and being really the money of the plaintiff, the town had no right to retain it, and this action was rightfully brought to recover it back.” See Johnson v. Goodridge, 15 Maine, 32 ; 2 Grreenl. Ev. § 22 ; Ware v. Percival, 61 Maine, 391; Hobbs v. Parker, 31 Maine, 143.
   AppletoN, C. J.,

William Hurd was legally assessed in, and liable to pay the plaintiffs in review, the sum of twenty-two dollars and fifty cents, for the year 1878. This tax he paid to William Lewis, the collector of taxes for that year, in March 1879.

On October 18, 1879, he was arrested by said Lewis, for the non-payment of the above mentioned tax, and to procure his release from arrest, paid the same to the collector and on the same day commenced this suit to recover the sum so paid, against the town of Liberty and recovered judgment by default on the same, of which suit this is a review.

The arrest was unlawful. The collector, Lewis, in making the arrest,, was not an agent of the town, for the tax had been previously paid. He was a mere trespasser and as such is liable. The money was not in the possession of the town or its treasurer when this suit was commenced. The collector had no authority to collect it twice. If, since the original suit was commenced, it has gone into the hands of the treasurer, it will not avail to maintain it.

The action in review is maintained. .The former judgment is to be wholly reversed, and judgment to be rendered for the plaintiffs in review for the amount of the original judgment debt and cost, with interest from its rendition and cost.

WaltoN, DaNeorth, Virgin, Peters and Symonds, JJ., •concurred.