Case Name: RICHARD GARVEY, Jr., et al., Petitioners, v. H. L. BYRAM, as Tax Collector, etc., Respondent
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1941-07-24
Citations: 18 Cal. 2d 279
Docket Number: L. A. No. 17800
Parties: RICHARD GARVEY, Jr., et al., Petitioners, v. H. L. BYRAM, as Tax Collector, etc., Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 18
Pages: 279–290

Head Matter:
[L. A. No. 17800.
In Bank.
July 24, 1941.]
RICHARD GARVEY, Jr., et al., Petitioners, v. H. L. BYRAM, as Tax Collector, etc., Respondent.
Richard Garvey, Jr., in pro. per., J. H. O’Connor, County Counsel, S. V. O. Prichard, Assistant County Counsel, and A. Curtis Smith, Deputy County Counsel, for Petitioners.
Landels, Weigel & Crocker and Walter S. Home for Respondent.

Opinion:
TRAYNOR, J.
Petitioners have instituted this proceeding in mandamus to compel the respondent, the tax collector of Los Angeles County, to execute a deed to petitioner Garvey pursuant to a public tax sale of certain real property. Respondent has generally demurred.
Garvey was the owner of the property in question when the tax lien attached and when the property was deeded to the state for unpaid taxes. Pursuant to the procedure prescribed in Political Code, sections 3834.20 to 3834.25, a public sale was held on April 11, 1940, at which petitioner Garvey made the highest bid. He bid less than the amount of the taxes that were delinquent when the property was deeded to the state, exclusive of penalties, interest and costs, but not less than the minimum price specified in the resolution of the board of supervisors approving the sale. Respondent, H. L. Byram, as Tax Collector of Los Angeles County refuses to issue a deed to Garvey on the grounds that Political Code, section 3834.25 (added by Stats. of 1939, ch. 529, sec. 2), does not contemplate a sale to the delinquent owner of the property for an amount less than the accumulated unpaid taxes, and that it could not be so construed without violating article XIII, section 1 of the California Constitution requiring all property in the state to be taxed in proportion to its value, and article IV, section 31, prohibiting the legislature from making or authorizing the making of any gift of any public money or thing of value to any individual.
Political Code section 3834.25 provides: "If the property is not redeemed before the sale, the tax collector shall sell the property at public auction to the highest bidder at the time and place fixed in the notice of intended sale; but no bid shall be accepted for a sum less than the minimum price fixed in the resolution of the board of supervisors." The section contains no specific exclusion of bids by the former owner of the property.
Such an omission, however, cannot be interpreted as an authorization of such bids in view of the long established rule in this state that an owner who has held title throughout the period of tax delinquency cannot be a vendee at the tax sale. Whatever payment he makes to the tax collector in the course of a purported sale under such circumstances must be regarded as a payment of taxes and cannot serve to effectuate an actual sale that would convey to him title to the property. (Moss v. Shear, 25 Cal. 38 [85 Am. Dec. 94]; McMinn v. Whelan, 27 Cal. 300; Coppinger v. Rice, 33 Cal. 408; Bernal v. Lynch, 36 Cal. 135; Barrett v. Amerein, 36 Cal. 322; Garwood v. Hastings, 38 Cal. 216; Reily v. Lancaster, 39 Cal. 354; Christy v. Fisher, 58 Cal. 256; Barnard v. Wilson, 74 Cal. 512 [16 Pac. 307]; Emeric v. Alvarado, 90 Cal. 444 [27 Pac. 356]; Gates v. Lindley, 104 Cal. 451 [38 Pac. 311].)
"It is well settled that one who is under a moral or legal obligation to pay the taxes is not in a position to become a purchaser at a sale made for such taxes. If such person permits the property to be sold for taxes, and buys it in, either in person or indirectly through the agency of another, he does not thereby acquire any right or title to the property, but his purchase is deemed one mode of paying the taxes." (Christy v. Fisher, 58 Cal. 256, 258; see, also, Black on Tax Titles, Second Edition, sections 273-274; Blackwell on Tax Titles, Fourth Edition, pages 443, 444.)
When a rule is so long engrained in the public policy of the state it must be presumed that the legislature took it for granted rather than sought to alter it in omitting any specific provision for its application. Thus, in the present situation the failure of the legislature to provide that bids are subject to the rule must be construed not as a rejection but as a tacit acceptance of the rule.
If a defaulting owner were allowed in effect to redeem his property through the simple device of submitting the highest bid at a tax sale, he could evade the conditions of redemption set forth in section 3817 of the Political Code, namely, the payment, before the state shall have disposed of the property, of "the amount of taxes, penalties for delinquency, and costs due thereon at the time of such sale, and also all taxes that were a lien upon said real property at the time said taxes became delinquent; and also all unpaid taxes of every description which are a lien against the property, for each year since the sale, as shown on the delinquent assessment rolls. ." It is significant that Political Code, section 3817, was reenacted with minor amendments during the same legislative session in which Political Code, section 3834.25, was enacted and it is not plausible that the absence of a specific provision in the second should serve to destroy the effectiveness of the specific provisions in the first.
Political Code, section 3897, originally provided that bids had to equal at least twice the taxes plus interest, costs, and expenses. (Amendments to the Codes, 1873-74, p. 153.) When the legislature, commencing in 1905 (Stats. and Amend. 1905, pp. 31, 32; Stats. 1933, p. 2586; Stats. 1935, p. 1437; Stats. 1939, ch. 529, see. 2), allowed lower minimum bids, it did not thereby enable defaulting owners to make such bids. Legislation that is concerned only with allowing a greater latitude in fixing the amount of the minimum bid cannot be construed to enlarge the field of bidders.
Petitioners seek to distinguish the cases cited above on the ground that they prevent a defaulting owner, not from becoming a vendee at a tax sale, but only from improving his title thereby through the elimination of other private inter-' ests. They advance the view that if his title is subsequently questioned by a private encumbrancer, the court should hold that the purchase "is in effect only a redemption." Such a view, however, is at variance not only with Political Code, section 3817, which sets forth the conditions of redemption, but with Political Code, section 3836.1, which provides that the tax collector's deed shall vest title in the grantee "free and clear of all encumbrances of any kind existing before the sale" except liens for future instalments of assessments, direct assessments, and taxes of a non-consenting tax agency. Paced with this clear statutory provision, petitioners maintain that should the defaulting owner become a grantee, principles of equity should prevail over the statutory provision to preclude his receiving a clear title. The court would thus be required not only to circumscribe the rule of the cases cited, but to run counter to express statutory provisions in order to formulate a policy, which finds no express legislative sanction, that defaulting owners may bid at tax sales. It is for the legislature and not the courts to formulate such a policy.
The petition for a peremptory writ of mandate is denied.
Gibson, C. J., Shenk, J., Curtis, J., Edmonds, J., and Pullen, J., pro tem., concurred.