Court Opinion

ID: 9807423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:03:38.517831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:36:21.674785
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
concurring: The Statute provides that ‘ ‘no person shall be permitted to question the title acquired by the Sheriff’s deed (under a tax sale) without first showing that he or the person under whom he claims title had title to the property at the time of the sale and that all taxes due upon the property had been paid by such persons or the persons under whom he claims title as aforesaid.” This was quoted verbatim *745in Moore v. Byrd, 118 N. C., 688 and the legislative power to enact it has been sustained in that and other_ cases. As the law has always required a plaintiff in ejectment to prove title out of the State, it would be very singular if the law-making power could not provide that a conveyance made by virtue of a sale under its statutory and preferred lien for public dues should be a prima facie title and not to be questioned save by one who shows that “all taxes due upon the property have been paid by such persons or the persons under whom he claims title as aforesaid.” The opinion in the present case expressly sustains the Statute, but I apprehend the 'true ground of distinction between this case and Moore v. Byrd, supra, is that in the present case the land covered by the deed is not the land which was sold fox-taxes; besides, the plaintiff here is in possession and seeks not to recover possession by virtue of a tax deed, but to remove a cloud upon title cast by a tax deed inadvertently given for a tract different from the one sold, and the taxes have been duly tendei-ed by the plaintiff.
One who intentionally shirks payment of his taxes throws the payment of them upon better men and is entitled to no more consideration than the coward who leaves the fight and casts an increased peril upon his braver comrades. If one who owes taxes inadvertently fails to pay he is given the benefit of an advertisement for sale and a personal notice 30 days before the sale, the publicity of a sale and 12 months thereafter. in which to- redeem, to xyhich, besides other safeguards, the Legislature has re-exxacted, in compliance with the suggestion of this Coux-t in Sanders v. Earp, 118 N. C., 275, the pi-ovision of the Act of 1887, which for some cause had been dropped, that (Act of 1897, Chapter *746169, Section 64) the purchaser shall serve a specific notice, with description of the property, upon the person in possession and upon them in whose name the land was assessed for taxes, at least three months before the expiration of the time allowed for redemption before such purchaser shall be entitled to a deed. And even one who purposely fails to pay his taxes has the same indulgencies.
The purchasers of land for taxes may in some cases be liable to moral censure for getting property at an under price, but the Courts cannot discountenance them, since, without purchasers, whom the law invites, the public dues upon the property of those who shirk payment of taxes could not be had. Purchasers of land sold for taxes are far more deserving of consideration than tax skulkers. Under the former tax laws the sale of property for taxes was so environed with technicalities that purchasers for taxes very rarely got a good title with the result that the evasions of taxes increased at a great rate with a crushing effect upon good citizens who were thus saddled with the entire expenses of government. To remedy this, the United States government, and most of the States, enacted a reform in tax sales, similar to that enacted in North Carolina in 1887 (Chapter 137) which has been everwhere sustained by the Courts. De Treville v. Smalls, 98 U. S., 517; Varnum v. Sluder, 69 Iowa, 92; Black on Tax Titles, Section 418 and many others besides and in this State; Stanley v. Baird, 118 N. C., 75; Peebles v. Taylor, Ibid, 165; Sanders v. Earp, Ibid 275; Moore v. Byrd, Ibid, 688; Powell v. Sikes, 119 N. C., 231. The letter of the Statute and every consideration impel us to adhere to what has been laid down in these cases.