Court Opinion

ID: 9725333
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:41:25.361621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:14.139839
License: Public Domain

The following opinion was filed December 30, 1953 :
Currie, J.
(on motion for rehearing). The respondent county insists in its brief filed in support of its motion for rehearing that plaintiff’s cause of action is barred by sec. 75.27, Stats., as amended by ch. 391, Laws of 1949. However, the period within which a former owner is permitted to redeem from tax sale is prescribed by secs. 75.01 and 75.03, and not by sec. 75.27. (At page 94 of our original opinion we erroneously included sec. 75.27 as being one of the sections governing redemption rights of a minor owner. It was counsel for defendant county who contended that sec. 75.27 was applicable thus making it necessary for us to consider such statute and its history.)
Sec. 75.28, Stats., has at all times material to this appeal contained a provision stating that the limitation period imposed by sec. 75.27 does not apply where the land has been redeemed “as provided by law.” The gist of our original opinion is that these words “as provided by law” in the case at bar refer to the provisions of sec. 75.03 prescribing the rights of minors to redeem, as such statute stood at the time the tax sale certificates were issued upon which the tax deeds to the defendant county were based.
*104bMinors, idiots, and insane persons, unlike other classes of owners, in some instances may have the right to redeem after the issuance of a tax deed. If a county wrongfully refuses such right of redemption after the issuance of a tax deed, making it necessary for the former owner, as in the instant case, to institute an action to compel redemption, the limitation period of sec. 75.27, Stats., has no application thereto because of the exception contained in sec. 75.28.
The limitation period imposed by sec. 75.27, Stats., has reference to a cause of action by a former owner out of possession to recover possession after issuance and recording of a tax deed, such action being grounded upon some defect in the tax sale proceedings, or in the subsequent procedure followed in issuing the tax deed, which renders the tax deed voidable during such limitation period. In Carroll v. Richland County (1953), 264 Wis. 96, 99, 58 N. W. (2d) 434, we referred to such deed being “void at the demand” of the former owners, meaning thereby that it was voidable during the limitation period if the former owners took appropriate action during said period to recover possession.
By the Court. — Motion for rehearing denied with costs.