Levi Woodbury

“ The argument that the owner of these lots need not have suffered by all of them being sold, and at a low price, because he might have redeemed them, has little force when the same oversight, or accident, or misfortune, which prevented the seasonable payment of the tax, is likely to prevent the redemption, and when this argument, if sound, would apply to any other defect in the sale, and operate against the force of it, on the ground that the owner might redeem. ”

“ Without going into more details, these cases fully sustain the doctrine, that what a public corporation or officer is empowered to do for others, and it is beneficial to them to have done, the law holds he ought to do. ”

“ Several reasons have been assigned for the reversal of the judgment in this case; but as we think one of them is well founded, it is not necessary to examine the others. That one is the sale of each of the twenty lots, assessed to the Washington Tontine Company, instead of selling the first two lots only, they having been bid off for more than enough to pay the taxes on the whole. The sale of all of them was, therefore, unnecessary to insure the collection of all the taxes ”

“ The purchaser, setting up a new title in hostility to the former owner, is not to be favored, and should have looked into it with care before buying, and not expect to disturb or defeat old rights of freehold without showing a rigid compliance with all the material requisitions of the laws under which the sale was made. Finally, it tends to fortify the view here adopted, that the statutes in several States on the subject of such sales allow only so many lots to be sold as will pay all the taxes against the same owner, such course being manifestly the most just. ”

“ Upon the agreed state of facts, the Circuit Court gave judgmen t for the defendant. The plaintiff brought the case to this court, by writ of error, and the present plaintiffs in error were his heirs and devisees. ”

“ It is further proved, on the part of the defendant, that the collector of taxes imposed by the said corporation, and who was authorized to advertise and sell the property liable to be sold in the said city for taxes, on the 15th day of September, in the year 1838, the taxes on the said lots for the year 1836 and 1837 being in arrear and unpaid, caused to be inserted in the National Intelligencer, a newspaper published in the said city, the following advertisement (copied in p. 64) ”

“ That the fourth section of the act of 1824 is not mandatory; and it is left to the discretion of the corporate authorities whether they will or will not provide for the sale of any one or more lots, or part or parts of lots, to satisfy the taxes due on the whole, assessed to the same person. ”

“ Backwell's case, 1 Vernon, 152-154; 2 Chitty, 251; Dwarris on Stat. 712; Newburgh T. Co. v. Miller, 5 Johns. Ch. 113; City of New York v. Furze, 3 Hill, 612, 614; Minor et al. v. The Mechanics' Bank, 1 Peters, 64. ”