Edward Douglass White

“ The proceedings leading up to the tax sale, as they appear on the record before us, do not include the required notice nor any order therefor, nor is it shown that any such notice was put on record in the course of the tax sale proceedings. It is true that the order directing the sale recites: 'It appearing that the order herein made requiring the owners of the land in this suit to appear and show cause, if any they could, why a lien should not be declared on certain land, has been duly published in the manner required by statute,' etc. ”

“ The defendant demurred to the jurisdiction of the court, and, upon the overruling of his demurrer, answered, averring the validity of the sale made him by the commissioner of lands, and claiming that the sales to the complainant under the proceedings in the Ashley county court were absolutely void, because there was no law authorizing them, because the court had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and because of fatal irregularities in the proceedings themselves. ”

“ Smith: 'Those only who have a clear, legal, and equitable title to land, connected with possession, have any right to claim the interference of a court of equity to give them peace, or dissipate a cloud on the title.' 18 How. 265.'
The law of Arkansas authorizes a bill to remove a cloud on a title whether or not the complainant be in possession. Acts Ark. 1891, p. 132. By reason of this statute, a bill in equity may be maintained in the circuit court of the United States by a person not in possession against another who is also out of possession. ”

“ That hereafter any citizen of this state, who shall give security for cost, may file a complaint in equity in the name of the state in the court having equity jurisdiction in the county in which the lands lie, setting forth that taxes are due on lands to be therein described, or that for any reason lands lying in the county have not been assessed for any one or more years, and praying that a lien may be fixed on such lands, by a decree of the court, for such unpaid taxes, and that the lands may be sold for the payment thereof. ”

“ The master said: 'In any event, whether of success of the scheme or of foreclosure, because of the priority of the lien of the coupons and interest of the general mortgage bonds, and the receivers' certificates and the salvage of the securities pledged for the secured indebtedness and of the equipment, the debts which are proposed to be paid out of the said moneys to be raised would be payable out of the proceeds of the collateral trust bonds and their security, in preference to the income mortgage bondholders, unsecured general indebtedness, and stockholders. ”

“ Chief Justice FULLER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court. Without discussing the various matters urged upon our attention by counsel for the petitioner, it is sufficient to say that we are of opinion that the leave asked for cannot be granted. ”

“ At the end of the forty days mentioned in section 2 of this act, the clerk shall enter upon the record a decree pro confesso, covering all lands named in the complaint, regarding which no answer has been filed, which order may be in the following form: "State of Arkansas on the Relation of _____, Plaintiff, v. Certain Lands on Which Taxes are Alleged to be Due, Defendant. ”

“ The Revised Statutes gave the right to bring such a suit where 'any defendant' resided out of the district. The act of 1875 gives the right 'where one or more' may so reside. We see no force in this argument, which in effect eliminates the word 'one' from the statute and replaces it by the word 'two,' thus causing it to read 'two or more,' instead of 'one or more.' The suggestion that as the words 'one or more,' in section 737, Rev. ”

“ It sanctions the raising of money by rightful means upon reasonable terms and for proper objects, and it is not a valid ground of objection to it that it also renders feasible, in case of due acceptance, the only reorganization project which is known to exist. The receivers should not enlist on either side in conflicts amongst those interested in the property they have in charge ”