Court Opinion

ID: 9713350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:14:00.65265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:18.244103
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). This suit, brought here in abortive effort to save that which judging by tax assessments must be a home of the humble, will undoubtedly be known in years to come as the “thirty-six cent tax case.” It arrives in a court of equity grown cold and aloof from the warmth and worth of its maxims — a court that, to engage Mr. Justice Cardozo’s expression, plunges the knife with averted gaze, convinced as it deplores and performs the sacrificial rite that it has no other choice — a court that wrings pious hands as it records upon corporal oath inability “to find a way to grant them (the plaintiff home-losers) the relief prayed for.”
“The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in;— and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, *271dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”*
The dignity of high office restrains a more vigorous preamble. As I behold, on this record of oppression, victory in this “court of equity” of the oppressor over the oppressed, the sayings of John Morley stand forth. The first characteristic of the righteous is active opposition to injustice. The instinct to become indignant in the face of tyranny is a divine impulse. It is a serious mistake to assume that the true Christian never becomes angry.
Mr. Justice Smith writes that the presently-considered platted lots could not lawfully be sold at tax sale for the assessed taxes combined with the penalty. He says that the presently-mentioned $12 when received by the treasurer actually operated to pay the outstanding taxes — not penalty — against both lots. I agree with his conclusion but nevertheless prefer direct .stand upon equities the force and appeal of which should be sufficient to save the home lot at very least. •
The facts of the case alone are provocative, to say nothing of majority conclusion thereon. They will now unfold.
A home, situated on 1 of the 2 mentioned lots, is separately assessed for taxes in the sum of $10. An adjacent vacant lot, belonging to the same homeowners, is separately assessed in the sum of $2. The last date for paying such taxes, without penalty, is January 10th of the year succeeding assessment. The mentioned owners fail to pay both assessments by January 10th. Between that date and the time of tax settlement in early March the tax collector (township treasurer) is authorized by law to collect a penalty on each such delinquent tax. The col*272lector’s demanded penalty on the home lot was 30 cents and on the adjacent lot it was 6 cents.
Prior to tax settlement the mentioned owners of the 2 lots sent the township treasurer $12 for the known purpose of paying such taxes. No portion of the amount so forwarded was ever credited to payment of taxes on either lot and, on face of the testimony and accompanying instruments brought here, the $12 has disappeared. The township treasurer says she sent the $12 back to the mentioned homeowners because it was 36 cents short. The homeowners say they never received it.
On strength of this impasse it is said that the home was lost by force of the ensuing delinquent tax sale proceedings — that title thereto has irrevocably passed to the grasping tax sale bidder — that it cannot now be redeemed by force of law — and that this Court of equity is powerless to hear and determine the equities of the presented case because a statute* distinguished from equity’s maxims says this bill entered the county clerk’s office 7 months and 10 days too late. Such is the puerile challenge to which this “court of equity” yields in supine shame.
First: The need for attention in these chambers to Michigan’s visible drift during recent years from the principles of equity in equity cases recalls Professor Pomeroy’s warning, voiced exactly 75 years ago. It appears in the preface to each edition of his master treatise on equity jurisprudence. I quote it from the latest (1 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence [5th ed], pp xxiv, xxv) as follows:
■ “There has not, of course, been any conscious intentional abrogation or rejection of equity on the part of the courts. The tendency, however, has plainly and steadily been towards the giving an un*273due prominence and superiority to purely legal rules, and the ignoring, forgetting, or suppression of equitable notions. The correctness of this conclusion cannot be questioned nor doubted; the consenting testimony of able lawyers who have practiced under both systems corroborates it; and no one can study the current series of State reports without perceiving and acknowledging its truth. In short, the principles, doctrines, and rules of equity are certainly disappearing from the municipal law of a large number of the States, and this deterioration will go on until it is checked either by a legislative enactment, or by a general revival of the study of equity throughout the ranks of the legal profession. * * * • '
“I need not dwell upon the disastrous consequences of the tendency above described, if it should go on to its final stage. Even a partial loss of equity would be a fatal injury to the jurisprudence of a State. So far as equitable rules differ from those of the law, they are confessedly more just and righteous, and their disappearance would be a long step backward in the progress of civilization.”
Chief Justice Cardozo’s historic, arid oft-quoted dissent in Graf v. Hope Building Corp., 254 NY 1 (171 NE 884, 70 ALR 984)* has become equity’s modern fount in cases ■ where the tyrant demands his dollars and cents on legal time whatever the impact of sickening hardship his victim suffers on account thereof. Graf ' is the case where a mortgagor’s agent, about to leave *274for Europe, left instructions with a bookkeeper to make timely payment of the mortgage-required instalment of principal and interest. Through an error of arithmetic the check, as timely mailed to the mortgagee, was short a comparatively trifling amount. The time for payment of the instalment having expired, and the mortgage containing an acceleration clause, the mortgagee demanded his full pound of accelerated payment. The chief justice said this for the minority of his day (pp 9,12-14):
“Equity follows the law, but not slavishly nor always. Hedges v. Dixon County, 150 US 182, 192 (14 S Ct 71, 37 L ed 1044). If it did, there could never be occasion for the enforcement of equitable doctrine. 13 Halsbury, Laws of England, p 68. * * *
“True, indeed, it is that accident and mistake will often be inadequate to supply a basis for-the granting or withholding of equitable remedies where the consequences to be corrected might have been avoided if the victim of the misfortune had ordered his affairs with reasonable diligence. United States v. Ames, 99 US 35, 47 (25 L ed 295); Grymes v. Sanders. 93 US 55 (23 L ed 798); Noyes v. Clark, 7 Paige (NY) 179. (32 Am Dec 620). The restriction, however, is not obdurate, for always the gravity of the fault' must be compared with the gravity of the hardship. Noyes v. Anderson, 124 NY 175 (26 NE 316, 21 Am St Rep 657); Lawrence v. American National Bank, 54 NY 432; Ball v. Shepard, 202 NY 247, 253 (95 NE 719). Let the hardship be strong enough and equity will find a way, though many a formula of inaction may seem to bar the path. Griswold v. Hazard, 141 US 260, 284 (11 S Ct 972, 999, 35 L ed 678). * * *
“In this case, the hardship is so flagrant, the misadventure so undoubted, the oppression so apparent, as to justify a holding that only through an acceptance of the tender will equity be done.”
For the support of these great doctrines the present dissent is respectfully devoted. In accordance *275therewith, and to consider this case, we who revere equity adjourn to the quiet and sacred portals of equity’s cathedral. As we deliberate, .our 10-com-mandment maxims supposedly attend each written and spoken word. The appealing tenets of conscience, guided by these maxims, lead us unerringly to every ruling and every decision made in the course of assembly here. The unaccompanying majority, however, says “We cannot find a way.” The search wherever made must have been slight — the effort not prolonged.
. Second: Today’s majority gives us the following as essential facts of the case we have before us:
“In December, 1947, plaintiffs received notice that the tax due on the lots amounted to $12 and, in order to avoid a further penalty of 3%, should be paid on or before January 10, 1948. Plaintiff Evelyn Farr testified that she was unable to pay the tax before the due date, but that in March,. 1948, she sent to Vera Shipman, Plainfield township treasurer, a $10 and two $1 bills, and that she was subsequently advised by Mrs. Shipman that the money had been sent to the courthouse. Mrs. Shipman denied receiving payment in the form 'of a $10 bill and two $1 bills, but said she did receive a money order for $12 which she returned to plaintiff because plaintiff had refused to pay the 3% penalty.”
I add — that the picture be made whole — these possibly repetitious but detailed facts.
The home in question is situated on lot 21. Adjacent lot 20 is vacant. Lots 20 and 21 were separately assessed through the years and of course became subject to separate payment and separate redemption. The township treasurer’s bill to the plaintiffs, for 1947 taxes, separated the assessments and tax totals as to each lot. The bill specified the total tax on lot 21 as $10 and the total tax on lot 20 as $2. The currency making up the $12, mentioned in Mr., *276Justice Kelly’s opinion, was according to plaintiff Evelyn Parr “put in an envelope and handed to the mailman” — the envelope being addressed to the township treasurer, Vera Shipman.
Mrs. Parr positively testified that the $12 was never received back from Mrs. Shipman, in the form of a money order or otherwise, and that Mrs. Ship-man told her that she, Mrs. Shipman, “had mailed the tax money of $12 to the courthouse.” Mrs. Farr testified further that Mr. Hunsberger, the township supervisor in whose home Mrs. Shipman lived during the collection months of January, February, and March of 1948, told her (Mrs. Parr) the 1947 taxes were paid. This latter testimony is neither disputed nor discredited.
. The record additionally discloses that Mr. and Mrs. Parr were habitually delinquent in payment of their taxes. It discloses too that the defendant Nordman, doing what appears as a rousing good business in the acquisition of tax titles, was just as regularly buying up taxes on the Parr lots as such came to sale. The reason for this situation is disclosed this way in the testimony of Mrs,. Parr:
“I have heard Mrs. Shipman testify what she said, and I say I sent $10 and $2. It is right that the taxes were more than $12. My husband was sick and my daughter gave me that money.
“The Court: It was only 36 cents more, and you were angry because they wanted to charge you that penalty.-
“A. At that time I couldn’t pay it.
“The Court:' Thirty-six cents, and you have gotten into a lawsuit that may involve the loss of your home-for 36 cents. -
(Witness continuing):
. “I- didn’t pay any attention to the cards or letters on the 1947 tax because I knew I had paid it. When she said I mailed her a money order, that is untrue.”
*277Further, and with regard to Mr. Justice Nelly’s reference to Nordman’s talk by telephone with Mrs. Farr, we find this version of the affair as related by Mrs. Farr:
“I did not talk with Mr. Nordman before Jim Too-hey served the notice on me. The only time I ever talked'with Mr. Nordman was in 1952 when it was cold. I can’t tell what month it was but they wore overcoats. There was a lady with Mr. Nordman but she wasn’t in the house. I talked with him on that occasion and he told me I would have to pledge the money before I got the place back. I said we won’t, and the tax is paid. My tax was paid; and he said ‘Give me the receipts.’ He did not give me any authority for demanding to see my receipts and I told him I would look for it. I did look for it but did not find it because I didn’t receive any receipt back but I can truthfully prove I sent the $12 to Mrs. Shipman.
“The Court: Hid she tell you how much the tax was with interest?
“A. She did.
“The Court: How much did she tell you?
“A. She said it was $12, 36 or 38 cents. I wouldn’t recall right to the penny.
“The Court: And you told her you wouldn’t pay more than 12.
“A. I told her I couldn’t. I didn’t have a penny in the house. I only had the $12. My daughter gave it to me to pay for it, but I did have a self-addressed envelope, and I sent it to Mrs. Shipman, and I waited 4 days and called her and asked her if she would please send my tax receipt. She said she had sent that money to the county treasurer, and I called them also to send me a tax receipt.”
So much for the facts and the unusual supplication thereof. It is easier indeed to follow the beaten path than it is to clear another.
*278Third: Our majority iu this year 1956 says it cannot find a way to save this home. I say we can and that we should rest decision on the rule of Palmer v. State Land Office Board, 304 Mich 628; Here as-there a good-faith effort to pay delinquent taxes was-made. Here, unlike Palmer, actual payment of more-than enough to pay the tax and penalty on the principal parcel delinquent was made within the proper time to the proper official. That effort failed at law through mistake or fault of such official. It should prevail of right in equity.
The ultimate fact of this case is that the township' treasurer duly received more than enough money from the plaintiffs to pay the outstanding tax plus penalty on their home lot. Whether the township treasurer sent the money to the county treasurer, or whether she mailed it back to the plaintiffs, is of little concern in equity. Considering the probably unprecedented equities of the case before us, and limiting ensuing observation thereto, I hold that the $12 should on receipt have been applied, with or without direction from plaintiffs and to fullest extent, to the known purpose of its forwarding.
They (the plaintiffs) -say positively they did not receive the $12 back from the township treasurer. The latter says she sent it back. The money (or money order if there was one) went somewhere, that we know. Its last for-sure possessor was the township treasurer. The supervisor (Mr. Hunsburger) indisputably assured plaintiff Evelyn Farr that “the 1947 tax was paid” and Palmer says she had a right to rely on his statement. In these circumstances we as chancellors of the court of chancery admit to disgusting impotence through failure to apply equity’s first and foremost maxim — equity regards and treats as done that which in gopd conscience should have.1' been done.
*279Pomeroy says (2 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence [5th ed], § 364, pp 10-12):
“Some writers have failed to apprehend the full significance of this maxim, and have described its effects in altogether a too narrow and partial manner. Others have correctly looked upon it as the very foundation of all distinctively equitable property lights, of all equitable estates and interests, both real and personal. * * * So far from the maxim being confined to express executory contracts, and to those dispositions of property which give rise to an equitable conversion, it has been applied by the most eminent courts to all classes of equities; to every instance where an equitable ought with respect to the subject-matter rests upon one person towards another; to every kind of case where an affirmative equitable duty to do some positive act devolves upon one party, and a corresponding equitable right is held by another party.”
Fourth: It is said that the 1-year period of limitation prescribed in aforesaid section 70 of the general property tax law expired with binding finality between service of notice (February 1, 1952) and filing pf bill (September 11, 1953). Odgers v. Lentz, 319 Mich 502, is advanced in support. Odgers presents no unusual equities and it came here with restricted question presented on a stipulation of counsel. No claim of actual payment or actual tender was made. Yet our majority accepts and applies it here as a deplored bar to equity’s grace.
Equity is not troubled or impeded by limitations at law where actual or constructive fraud is involved or equities are sufficiently compelling. These plaintiffs in equity’s view paid in good time more than enough to retire this delinquent tax on their' home. Mr. Nordman has invested nothing, over and above his paltry bid of $13.24, in that home. Immediately upon expiration of section 70’s- 1-year period of lim*280itation lie wrote plaintiffs his ultimatum to commence paying rent at $22 per month or suffer ejectment. Shortly thereafter he commenced such threatened action and plaintiffs in turn filed this bill.
The facts alone, if not proof of constructive fraud, are sufficient to meet and annihilate claim that the guillotine of limitation dropped with killing finality less than 8 months prior to filing of the present bill. Laches, not limitation by statute, is the controlling rule of conduct on this side of the Court, and our decisions set at rest any question that a statute of limitation must always be accepted and applied in equity regardless of equity.
Brown v. Harrison, 242 Mich 603, 606: “Defendants’ counsel insisted in the court below and do here that the laches of plaintiffs precludes recovery here. It is a general rule that a court of equity will, apply the statute of limitations by analogy. But this is not a hard and fast rule. The court of equity frequently overlooks delays.”
Brydges v. Emmendorfer, 311 Mich 274, 279: “We are not in accord with defendants’ claim that the trustee is barred by laches or statute of limitations from maintaining the suit. The statute of limitations does not control the question of laches in equitable actions.”
Tilley v. Brady, 323 Mich 547, 551: “The suit being in equity, the statute of limitations has no direct application. The question, therefore, is whether it appears from the bill that plaintiff has been guilty of laches barring her right to seek relief in equity. In considering such question it must be borne in mind that lapse of time alone is not sufficient to constitute laches. There must also be a change of conditions rendering it inequitable to enforce the claim, or such a showing as establishes that the defendants were prejudiced by the delay. Each case must be determined on its own facts. Sanders v. Campbell, 231 Mich 592; Collins v. LaMotte, 244 Mich 504; Hope v. *281Detroit Trust Co., 275 Mich 213; Brydges v. Emmendorfer, 311 Mich 274. It does not appear that defendants were prejudiced in any way because of plaintiffs failure to press her alleged cause of action more promptly. Neither does it appear that there was any such change in circumstances as would have rendered it inequitable to permit her to do so at the time she brought the present action.”
Fifth: I already hear querulous plaint that questions dealt with in this opinion have not been raised in court below or brief on appeal. The short answer is that we hear and consider equity cases de novo— that we stand in the same position of maxim-guided duty as did the chancellor of the circuit court. Here, as in that court, the responsibility of equity is neither controlled nor limited by the action or inaction of counsel. Equity delights in doing justice, and not by halves. She is ever vigilant to guard the weak and the ignorant, the meek and the misinformed, from the evils of injustice whenever and wherever the equities of the whole unfolding matter sufficiently appeal to the mighty compassion of her benevolent instruments. Tyranny amounting to legal butchery, occurring in her very presence, is a challenge she rarely fails to meet whether she be petitioned to action or moves of her own will.
To recapitulate: This in sum is an obvious case of ignorant and impecunious folk clinging tenaciously and regardless of a tax-sale notice to understandable conviction that their taxes have been paid — to childlike faith that they, hence, need fear no evil. As Mr. Justice Cardozo would say, their hardship is so flagrant, their misadventure so undoubted, the result so apparent, that equity’s will may be done only through equitable relief from the forfeiture decreed below. ■ • •
I would forcibly inject this steady acquirer of Farr-home tax titles with equity’s beneficent religion *282by imputing to Mm the purposes of a volunteering trustee — a trustee whose noble act of stepping forth to the auction block, with a bid of 14 whole dollars* for this home, was motivated solely by intent to protect from the jaws of tax sharks those whose witless faith in the previous tender or payment of $12 has left them exposed in dangerously infested legal waters. Such a decree would afford wholesome teaching that homes are not always safely bought at tax sales for the cost of a short grocery order. The injection would, at the same time, permit in our quarters an enthusiastic vote of approval of a decreed and fully executed trusteeship.
I would reverse for decree of redemption as to lot 21. The decree should, of course, assure Mr. Nordman prompt refund of his out-of-pocket investment in lot 21 plus interest thereon. Por evident reasons I would deny costs all around.

 Life and Opinions -of Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne, p 342. ■ . -

 CL 1948, § 211.70 (Stat Ann 1950 Rev § ,7.115). This is section 70 of the general property tax law.

 Cited in Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products, 322 US 607, 620; (64 S Ct 1215, 88 L ed 1488, 153 ALR 1007), this way:
“The creative analogies of the law were drawn upon by which great equity judges, exercising imaginative resourcefulness, have always escaped the imprisonment of reason and fairness within mechanical concepts of the common law. See, e. g., Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Florida, 295 US 301 (55 S Ct 713, 79 L ed 1451) ; Inland Steel Co. v. United States, 306 US 153 (59 S Ct 415, 83 L ed 557) ; and for some examples of this approach see Graf v. Hope Building Corp., 254 NY 1, 7 (171 NE 884, 70 ALR 984) (Cardozo, C. J., dissenting).” .

 Mr. Nordman’s successful bid for lot 21 at the tax sale was $13.24. His bid for lot 20 (the vaeaut lot) at same sale was $3.45.