Court Opinion

ID: 9563678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:44:38.542797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:01.490091
License: Public Domain

WORTHEN, Justice.
I dissent. It appears that the majority opinion completely ignores the legislative mandate contained in Sections 78-12-5.1 and 78-12-5.2, Pocket Supplement to Volume 9, U.C.A.1953.
Those sections are set out in full in the majority opinion but without the chapter caption, which I think significant.
The purpose for enactment of those two sections is declared in the caption of the chapter which is as follows:
“Real Property — Limitations
“An Act Amending Sections 104— 2 — 5, Utah Code Annotated 1943 as Amended by Chapter 18, Laws of Utah 1943; 104-2-7 Utah Code Annotated 1943 and 104-2-12, Utah Code Annotated 1943, and Repealing Section 104-2-5.10, as Amended by Chapter 19, Laws of Utah 1943 as Amended by Chapter 8 Laws of Utah 1947, and Enacting New Laws to Be Known as Sections 104-2-5.10 and 104-2-5.11, Limiting the Period Within Which Actions May Be Commenced for Recovery of Real Property Sold and Conveyed to the County Under Tax Deed or for the Possession Thereof.” (Emphasis added.)
The majority opinion concedes that the two sections set out in footnote 1 of the majority opinion are what are referred to *129as adverse possession statutes, and that the two sections set out in footnote 3 of the majority opinion are what are referred to as statutes of limitation. Yet that opinion makes arguments which might well have been directed to a legislative committee urging that the legislature refrain from enacting those sections. The majority opinion makes certain statements which are obvious misstatements. It states: “ * * * the limitation statutes make no mention of any rights which the adverse party must have in order to invoke the provisions of these limitations statutes” when the statute clearly states that the party must be a holder under a tax title. It also states that “such a holding [as plaintiffs contend] would leave the plaintiffs in possession although they have failed to establish any valid claim to such property under the adverse possession statutes previously discussed on which their claims are based or by any other means.” The opinion there shows a complete lack of comprehension as to the basis of plaintiffs’ claims. Plaintiffs’ claims are not based on the adverse possession statutes but rather upon a tax title and the limitations sections.
The majority opinion also states, “We do not think that such construction of these statutes was intended.” Who are we to determine legislative intent except by their wording in the statute? It seems to me that the statute in question is plain and unambiguous that title shall be quieted in the holder of a tax title against anyone who has been out of possession for four years. Why should we read requirements into those sections which the legislature saw fit to leave out?
Certainly we are not privileged to say the legislature could not have intended to enact these statutes, and we therefore will declare them to be of no force and effect in order to save the legislature from its own folly in enacting them unintentionally.
The majority opinion assumes that the legislature may, by the enactment of an adverse possession statute, prevent the legal owner from asserting his title if the adverse claimant has paid all taxes levied and assessed for the period of four years and has occupied and claimed the land for the period of seven years continuously. But the opinion states that the legislature did not intend to set up a four-year limitation statute notwithstanding that the declared intent of the legislature as set out in the caption of said chapter and in the limitation sections was to do exactly that. Nor can I concede that the holder of the tax title is given neither the title nor the legal right of possession by any statute until he has held adversely for the period of seven years and paid the taxes.
The argument of the majority opinion begs the question of whether plaintiffs’ *130tax title coupled with four years of possession is a valid title and proceeds on the theory that such title is not valid and then argues from that point. Such a théory does violence to the very language of the statute and is another attempt to adroitly sidestep legislative intent. We are not privileged to say that the legislature cannot establish any statute of limitations unless the same contains the same provisions as are contained in the adverse possession statute.
The inference that the limitation sections may be unconstitutional under a literal construction of them seems .to have no-foundation and certainly cannot be seriously considered. If these limitation sections are unconstitutional then -every statute that is not in accord with the adverse, possession statute is likewise unconstitutional. Our limitation statutes range from six months to eight years and the question of the limitation period is a legislative and not a judicial question. It is a well-recognized rule of statutory construction that courts will not abort the legislative will by substituting their judgment for that of the legislature.
These facts appear from the majority opinion:
(1) In 1941 plaintiffs’ predecessor received a tax deed from the ’county.
(2) At all times since 1941 plaintiffs or their' predecessors have been in exclusive and open possession of such property and have cultivated, planted and harvested crops, used the land for grazing and enclosed it within a substantial fence.
(3) Appellants have neither occupied nor been in actual possession of the property during such time.
By its enactment of Sections 78-12-5.1 and 78-12-5.2 the legislature did not intend, those sections to be limited as are the ad-¡ verse possession sections. It would have, been very easy for the legislature to require under the limitation sections the pay-. ment of taxes. Certainly it is not within our right to add that provision when the legislature saw fit to leave it out.
As I view the legislative action in enacting Chapter 19 in question, it was to carve out a specific situation applicable to property held under tax title and make a new statute of limitations that would protect’ the county or a purchaser from the county' against the record owner who for four’ years had not concerned himself with the' property, had not treated it as if he were the owner and had been out of possession during the full four-year period.
In Peterson v. Callister1 we stated:
“Title 78-12-5.1 is a statute of limitations which prevents the assertion of a defense by a record owner if he has not had possession of the property during a four-year period after one *131has received a tax title thereto. * * It is not unlike other statutes of limitation, such as those barring an action on negotiable paper by passage of time. The obligation in such case may remain but the holder cannot enforce it. * * * It is a statute of repose, obviously intended to lay at rest claims against tax titles which are asserted more than four years after acquisition of a tax title under statutory proceedings, and where the record owner has not had possession during that period. * * * We believe the legislature had in mind a four-year statute of limitations barring claims against tax titles, which four-year period dated from the initiation of the tax title, during which period any claimant against the tax title must have had possession of the property to protect any claim he might have. Any other interpretation does not square with the general nature and purpose of the act, and could lead to novel and, we believe, unintended results, so as to defeat the entire purpose of a statute that seems to be designed to settle, not confuse, and to make certain, not uncertain, titles based on statutory liquidation of tax charges.”
Nor is the statement in the majority opinion, that this construction of the statute would have required a different result in Bowen v. Olson2 correct. In that case the action was commenced before the present limitations statute was passed, and to dismiss the matter by stating that a mere proviso was added to the adverse possession statute solves nothing.
The legislature, by the enactment of the limitation statutes, clearly intends to give the tax title holder a new title resting upon his tax title which cannot be challenged by anyone who has been out of possession more than four years no' matter what his claims to the property once were. What the majority opinion fails to recognize is that someone can have a better title than the record title holder; namely, the holder of the tax title. That opinion erroneously overlooks the fact that plaintiffs have established their tax title by the statute’s interdiction against raising of defenses or commencing actions against a tax title holder after being out of possession continuously for a four-year period following the issuance of the tax title and one year after the enactment of the statute.
This court seems to have exerted great legal gymnastics in its effort to overturn obvious legislative intent in order to set aside tax titles. I am unable to understand by what reasoning the court feels compelled to frown upon tax titles unless on the assumption that taking a man’s property for taxes is a harsh remedy; yet, on the other hand, it has no hesitancy *132in sustaining the mortgagee’s right to foreclose and take a man’s property for failure to pay a mortgage. In addition the tax defaulter gets a minimum of four years of grace before his property is taken, whereas, the mortgagor has only six months within which to redeem his property. A taxpayer’s obligation to society is a real obligation and no sharp practice is permissible under the statute. If he will fail to protect his property during the four-year period following the failure to pay the taxes he probably would, like the defendant here, fail for an additional twenty-six years.

. 6 Utah 2d 359, 313 P.2d 814, 815.

. 2 Utah 2d 12, 268 P.2d 983.