Court Opinion

ID: 9698996
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:06:23.461193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:45.368300
License: Public Domain

BEVILACQUA, Chief Justice,
with whom SHEA, Justice, joins,
dissenting.
The initial issue raised on appeal is whether the right of redemption granted in G.L.1956 (1980 Reenactment) chapter 9 of title 44 can be defeated by adverse possession. We answer this question in the negative.
The right to redeem property sold at a tax sale has been recognized in Rhode Island since the late nineteenth century. In 1896, the Rhode Island Legislature enacted G.L. ch. 48, § 16, which granted to a recalcitrant taxpayer a period of one year from the time of the tax sale to redeem the property.3 Although the redemption statute was amended in 1939,4 the one-year redemption period was maintained until 1946, when the General Assembly enacted new legislation regarding tax sales and redemption. In promulgating § 44-9-21, the General Assembly abolished the one-year redemption rule, opting instead for an indefinite redemption period.
“Redemption from purchaser other than town. — Any such person may so redeem by paying or tendering to a purchaser, other than the town, his legal representatives or assigns, or to the person to whom an assignment of a tax title has been made by the town, at any time prior to the filing of such petition for foreclosure, in the case of a purchaser the original sum and intervening taxes and costs paid by him, plus a penalty as provided in § 44-9-19, or in the case of an assignee of a tax title from a town, the amount stated in the instrument of assignment, plus the abovementioned penalty. He may also redeem the land by paying or tendering to the treasurer *660the sum which he would be required to pay to the purchaser or to the assignee of a tax title, in which case the town treasurer shall be constituted the agent of the purchaser or assignee.” (Emphasis added.)
It is clear that under the current law, the redemption period is controlled not by the prior owner of the property, but rather by the tax-title holder, for it is he who has the duty to foreclose all rights of redemption to the property once the twelve-month period has lapsed. Picerne v. Sylvestre, 113 R.I. 598, 600, 324 A.2d 617, 618 (1974). Our reading of the statute indicates that until the tax-sale purchaser complies with § 44-9-255 by petitioning the Superior Court for the foreclosure of all rights of redemption of the delinquent taxpayer, said right to redeem the property remains viable.
In Pratt v. Woolley, 117 R.I. 154, 365 A.2d 424 (1976), this court noted that as legislative innovations not recognized at common law, tax sale statutes are to be strictly construed in favor of the owner whose property is sold for nonpayment of taxes. It was stated that:
“The power to sell land for non-payment of taxes is not a common-law power, but arises entirely from statute, and therefore exists only when the conditions prescribed by the statute are fulfilled; and since such statutes are penal, and the proceedings under them ex parte, summary, executive rather than judicial, and an infringement of the rights of property only tolerated by reason of necessity, great strictness and exactness in following the law is required in favor of the land owner. ” (Emphasis added.) Id. at 161-62, 365 A.2d at 429 (quoting 1 Blackwell, Tax Titles, § 121 at 117 (5th ed. 1889)).
Although similar issues have been addressed by this court, the instant issue is one of first impression in this jurisdiction. In Picerne v. Sylvestre, this court noted that a tax collector’s deed is in the nature of an independant grant from the sovereign which bars or extinguishes all former titles, interests and liens not specifically excepted. The title conveyed is absolute, “subject only to defeasance by redemption. ” (Emphasis added.) 113 R.I. at 600-01, 324 A.2d at 618. In that case, although the realty of the prior owners was sold for taxes, the owners did not quit possession of the property for more than eleven years following the sale. On those narrow facts, we held that the holder of a tax title who procrastinates in foreclosing the right of redemption runs the risk of having his title divested by a successful showing of the requisite adverse possession. Id. at 602-03, 324 A.2d at 619-20. However, this is not to say that the converse is true, that is, that a tax-sale purchaser may defeat a prior owner’s right of redemption by fulfilling the requirements of adverse possession. It is our opinion that the trial justice committed error when he determined that defendant could foreclose plaintiffs’ redemption rights by adverse possession. In the past this court has noted both that judicial discretion and intervention in redemption matters is strictly limited and bounded by the precise wording of the statute, see Pratt v. Woolley, 117 R.I. at 161, 365 A.2d at 428; Parker v. MacCue, 54 R.I. 270, 272, 172 A. 725, 726 (1934), and that any discretion exercised by the trial court must be in favor of the landowner. Albert-*661son v. Leca, 447 A.2d 383, 386-87 (R.I.1982). See also Slade v. Rose, 188 F. 749, 751 (1st Cir. 1911) (courts interpret redemption statutes liberally in favor of landowner). However, in this case there was no need for the trial justice to exercise any discretion. The wording of both the redemption statute (§ 44-9-21) and the foreclosure statute (§ 44-9-25) is clear. The plaintiffs’ remedy was to file a petition in Superior Court to foreclose defendants’ right of redemption. This they did not do, and to allow them to attain by adverse possession what they failed to achieve by complying with the statute amounts to a judicial rewriting of those statutes which provide for redemption. This we would refuse to do.
When called upon to interpret a legislative enactment, this court has repeatedly stated that the words used by the Legislature in the wording of the statute must be given their plain and ordinary meaning, In re Shepard Co., 115 R.I. 290, 342 A.2d 918 (1975), and that unless a contrary intention clearly appears on the face of the statute, the words used are to be accorded their ordinary and customary meaning. Bristol County Water Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 117 R.I. 89, 363 A.2d 444 (1976). This principle of statutory construction was stated succinctly in Podborski v. William H. Haskell Manufacturing Co., 109 R.I. 1, 8, 279 A.2d 914, 918 (1971), wherein this court noted that:
“except in the case of equivocal and ambiguous language, the words of a statute cannot be interpreted or extended but must be applied literally. * * * The Legislature’s meaning and intention must first be sought in the language of the statute itself, and if the language is plain and unambiguous, and expresses a single definite and sensible meaning, that meaning is conclusively presumed to be the Legislature’s intended meaning and the statute must be interpreted literally.”
In the case at bar, the wording of the redemption statute is perfectly clear. When new legislation was enacted in 1946 addressing tax sales and redemption, the one-year redemption period was abolished in favor of an open-ended redemption period. Thereafter, a person whose property was sold at a tax sale was afforded the opportunity to redeem the property “at any time prior to the filing of [the] petition for foreclosure.” Section 44-9-21. We can only conclude that by replacing the one-year redemption period with an open-ended one, the Legislature intended to give the delinquent taxpayer the opportunity to redeem the property until the tax-sale purchaser satisfied the foreclosure requirement outlined in § 44-9-25. To conclude otherwise would be to ignore the statutory change enacted by the Legislature in 1946 and would violate this courts long recognized rules of statutory construction. In re Opinion to the Governor, 67 R.I.197, 21 A.2d 267 (1941); Moretti v. Division of Intoxicating Beverages, 62 R.I. 281, 5 A.2d 288 (1939); Morgan v. Allen, 51 R.I. 228, 153 A. 791 (1931); Racine v. District Court of the Tenth Judicial District, 39 R.I. 475, 98 A. 97 (1916).
Since we are of the opinion that strict compliance with the requirements of § 44-9-25 is á necessary condition of foreclosing a prior owner’s redemption rights, we would hold that the defendants’ adverse possession of the property, in and of itself, was insufficient to vest in them title to the property.

. General Laws 1896 ch. 48, § 16 provided that:
"[T]he person who owned any real estate sold for taxes, at the time of the assessment, or any interest therein, his heirs, assigns or devises, may redeem the same upon repaying to the puchaser the amount paid therefor, with twenty per centum in addition, within one year after the sale, or within six months after final judgment has been rendered in any suit in which the validity of the sale is in question: Provided said suit be commenced within one year after such sale."

. General Laws 1938 ch. 32, § 17, as amended by P.L.1939, ch. 695, § 1 provided that:
“The person who owned any real estate sold for taxes, or any interest therein, his heirs, assigns or devises, may redeem the same at any time within twelve months after the date of such sale * *

. General Laws 1956 (1980 Reenactment) § 44-9-25 provides that:
"Petition for foreclosure of redemption.— After one (1) year from a sale of land for taxes, except as provided in § § 44-9-19 to 44-9-22, inclusive, whoever then holds the title thereby acquired may bring a petition in the superior court for the foreclosure of all rights of redemption thereunder. Such petition shall set forth a description of the land to which it applies, with its assessed valuation, the petitioner’s source of title, giving a reference to the place, book and page of record, and such other facts as may be necessary for the information of the court. Two (2) or more parcels of land may be included in any petition brought by a town, as purchaser of such title or titles, if such parcels are in the same record ownership at the time of bringing such petition * * *.”