Court Opinion

ID: 9808103
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:28:02.784795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:08:59.758523
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
dissenting. The plaintiff tax collector of Macon County, sued his deputy for money collected on the tax lists turned over to him and for the execution of which duty the defendant had given bond as “deputy tax collector,” 7th September, 1891, and 24th September, 1892. There is and could be no objection to this transaction. The sheriff or tax collector may collect his entire tax list by deputy. It can malee no difference whether the entire tax list is collected by one, or by several deputies. The referee found the amount due by defendant on plaintiff’s cause of action after allowance of commissions, and there is no exception by either party to the amount reported by him.
The defferndant pleaded as a counterclaim that the plaintiff, on a day previous to that on which the deputy gave aforesaid bond, to-wit, in August, 1891, agreed that the defendant should have the collection of the entire tax list, and set up as counterclaim constructive commissions on certain taxes collected by the plaintiff himself. This agreement in August 1891, was illegal for the reasons given on the former hearing of this case, 125 N. C., 578; Code, sec. 2084; Basket v. Moss, 115 N. C., 448. But the effect of that illegality palpably would be to disallow the defendant’s counterclaim for the “constructivei” commissions claimed' by him under such illegal contract, and could not affect the valid claim of plaintiff for public moneys collected for plaintiff by defendant as *796bis deputy under a vaid contract and bond executed at a different time.
But the referee treated defendant’s counterclaim as valid, and allowed bis “constructive^’ fees, to which, there is no exception by plaintiffs. It is true, being contra bonos mores, these fees might be disallowed here, but that would increase the plaintiff’s recovery, and could not possibly authorize the dismissal of bis action.
The defendant, however, claimed that under a proper construction of the contract, which is the foundation of his counterclaim, and which has been held illegal, he could recover “constructive” costs for certain tax sales made by the sheriff. Aside from tire adjudged illegality of that contract defeating defendant’s claim, the terms thereof (if legal) did not embrace “costs for tax sales,” and the referee properly so held, and was affirmed by the Judge. Erom the refusal to allow the constructive “costs on tax sales/’ and on that ground alone, the defendant appealed to this Court.
There was a clerical error of $60.34 made by the referee in addition, but that was corrected by the Judge, and was already deducted before the appeal.
It should seem plain therefore that the defendant’s exception should be disallowed both because the constructive “costs on tax sales” are not Avithin the terms of the contract (if it were valid) and further because if Avithin its terms, the contract (in August, 1891), upon which the counterclaim is based, is invalid.
There is no ground for dismissal of plaintiff’s action to recover public moneys collected by defendant as his deputy. On the contrary the Court should ex mero motu reform the judgment by disallowing the counterclaim which the referee allowed defendant for “constructive commissions” upon a contract which the Court has held illegal.
Douglas, J., also dissents.