Case Name: Kelsey against Badger
Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1838-09
Citations: 7 Watts 516
Docket Number: 
Parties: Kelsey against Badger.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Volume: 7
Pages: 516–516

Head Matter:
Kelsey against Badger.
Donation land is exempt from taxes qnly during the lifetime of the soldier who was the original grantee: the exemption does not extend to his heir at law or devisee.
ERROR to the common pleas of Butler county.
John C. Kelsey and wife against James Badger and others.
The plaintiff gave in evidence a legal title to the land for which this ejectment was brought. The defendants relied upon a title regularly vested in them by a sale of the land for laxes. The original title was granted to John Pearson, a soldier. He died in 1782, having devised the same to Marcy Pearson. The land was sold for taxes which accrued subsequently to the death of John Pearson ; and the only question in the cause was, whether the land was the subject of taxation while it belonged to the devisee, who was also the heir at law of the original grantee; and which the court below (Bredin, President) ruled in favour of the defendant,
Purviance and Pearson, for plaintiff in error,
cited, 4 Binn. 89 ; 2 Smith’s Laws 287 ; 1 Yeates 216 ; 2 Dall. 205.
Sullivan and Gilmore, contra.

Opinion:
Per Curiam.
By the words of the acts of 1780 and 1785, a donation tract is exempt from taxation, at furthest, during the lifetime of the original grantee; and it is immaterial therefore whether the devisee, in this instance, took by descent or purchase; in either case the privilege of the grantee was at an end, and the land at his death became taxable.
Judgment affirmed.