Case Name: Feltz, Appellant, v. The Natalie Anthracite Coal Company
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1902-05-26
Citations: 203 Pa. 166
Docket Number: Appeal, No. 98
Parties: Feltz, Appellant, v. The Natalie Anthracite Coal Company.
Judges: Before McCollum, C. J., Mitchell, Dean, Brown and Mestrezat, JJ.
Reporter: Pennsylvania State Reports
Volume: 203
Pages: 166–167

Head Matter:
Feltz, Appellant, v. The Natalie Anthracite Coal Company.
Tax sale — Purchase by county — Abandonment of title.
Where county commissioners buy lands at a tax sale and subsequently cause the lands to be assessed for county taxes, and thereafter sell the lands for nonpayment of these taxes, the county will be deemed to have abandoned its first title, and the sale will vest a good title in the purchaser.
Argued April 16, 1902.
Appeal, No. 98, Jan. T., 1902, by plaintiff, from judgment of C. P. Columbia Co., May T., 1898, No. 106, on verdict for defendant in case of Isaac B. Feltz v. The Natalie Anthracite Coal Company.
Before McCollum, C. J., Mitchell, Dean, Brown and Mestrezat, JJ.
Affirmed.
Ejectment for land in Conyngham township known as the Nathaniel Brown tract. Before Little, P. J.
At the trial it appeared that the Nathaniel Brown tract was assessed with county and road taxes for the years 1826 and 1827, and was sold to the county commissioners of Columbia county in June, 1828.
These commissioners and their successors in office held this title until 1882, when it was sold at commissioner’s sale to C. G. Murphy, for the sum of $805. Plaintiff claimed through Murphy.
While the county held this title, the county commissioners caused this tract of land to be assessed with the county taxes for 1888, 1839, 1840 and 1841, and to be sold for the nonpayment of these taxes to James Pleasants in 1842. This title became vested in the Natalie Anthracite Coal Company.
The court gave binding instructions for defendant on the ground that when the county sold the land in 1842, it abandoned whatever title it had acquired by the sale in 1828.
Verdict and judgment for defendant. Plaintiff appealed.
Error assigned among others was in directing a verdict for defendant.
A. Ricketts, with him John Gr. Freeze, for appellant.
S. P. Wolverton, for appellee.
May 26, 1902:

Opinion:
Per Curiam,
The ruling of the learned judge of the court below was in accord with the decisions in Hunter v. Albright, 5 W. & S. 423, Diamond Coal Co. v. Fisher, 19 Pa. 267, Schreiber v. Moynihan, 197 Pa. 578, Cobb v. Barclay, 9 Pa. Superior Ct. 573, and Murphy v. Packer, 152 U. S. 398 (14 Sup. Ct. Repr. 636).
Judgment affirmed.