Court Opinion

ID: 9865258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:29:23.061512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:38:13.106539
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Denison and Mr. Justice Burke
specially concurring.
The plaintiff claims the direct government title, the defendants under a tax deed based on a sale in 1896 for the tax of 1895. This deed was issued in 1913. It does not recite the giving of the notice required by the act of 1893, but it does not show that the valuation was such as to require that notice. It affirmatively recites no fact which makes it void. The defendants invoke the statute of limitations. If this deed is void on its face the statute of limitations cannot avail defendants; if not, the statute takes effect.
The question then is: Is a tax deed void on its face because it fails to recite an essential prerequisite to its issue when the necessity for that prerequisite does not appear on its face? If it shows that the sale was in violation of a positive statute, the tax deed is void on its face (Gomer v. Chaffee, 6 Colo. 314; Knowles v. Martin, 20 Colo. 393, 395, 38 Pac. 467), but if extraneous evidence is necessary to show the illegality the deed is not void on its face. Knowles v. Martin, supra; Imperial Securities Co. v. Morris, 57 Colo. 194, 200, 141 Pac. 1160.
In the present case extraneous evidence is necessary to show that notice before the issue of the tax deed was necessary, because the tax deed does not show that the amount of the assessed valuation was such as to require notice. *60The tax deed is therefore not void on its face. Carnahan v. Sieber Cattle Co., 34 Colo. 257, 82 Pac. 592, and Richards v. Beggs, 31 Colo. 186, 72 Pac. 1077, are not in conflict with this conclusion because they do not relate to the question of the face of the deed, but to its ultimate validity and they merely hold that all essential prerequisites to the issue of the deed must be recited in the deed or otherwise proved.
The conclusion is that the statute of limitations bars plaintiff’s action.