The Northern Pacific Railroad Company sold to a purchaser a
tract included in the original grant to it which had never been
patented, and on which the costs of survey had never been paid. The
tract was sold for nonpayment of taxes while Dakota was a
territory, and the purchaser paid therefor. The Supreme Court of
North Dakota held that the land was not taxable when the tax was
levied and assessed, and that nothing passed by the sale. The
purchaser brought this action in the state court of North Dakota to
recover back the purchase money paid at the tax sale. A judgment in
plaintiff's favor was reversed by the supreme court of the state,
no question being made as to the regularity of the tax sale and
proceedings.
Held that the exemption of the land from
taxation having been recognized by the state court, no federal
question was involved, and the writ of error must be dismissed.
Motion to dismiss. The Court stated the case as follows:
Plaintiff presented a claim to the Board of County Commissioners
of Cass County, Dakota Territory, to recover moneys paid by him as
the purchase price of certain lands sold by the county treasurer
for delinquent taxes at a tax sale in 1885. The claim was rejected,
and plaintiff appealed to the District Court of Cass County, where
the cause was tried upon an agreed statement of facts without a
jury, and resulted in a judgment in favor of the plaintiff. The
defendant preserved proper exceptions to the rulings and action of
the court and carried the case by appeal to the supreme court of
the territory.
After the admission of North Dakota as a state, the appeal was
heard and decided by the state supreme court, which had succeeded
to the jurisdiction of the territorial supreme court. The opinion
will be found reported, in advance of the official series, in 48
N.W. 232. The judgment below was reversed, with instructions to
dismiss the case, and thereupon a writ of error was taken out from
this Court.
Page 142 U. S. 289
Counsel agree that the facts appearing of record are
substantially as follows: that the lands in question were part of
the original grant by the United States to the Northern Pacific
Railroad Company; that the company had, prior to the levy and tax
sale, disposed of said lands to private parties by deeds and
contracts, and such parties were in possession; that no patents had
been issued; that the company earned the lands after the passage of
the Act of Congress approved July 15, 1870, in regard to payment of
the cost of surveying; that they were surveyed at the expense of
the United States government after the date of the act, and no part
of the cost and expense of the survey had been repaid by the
company to the United States; that in 1884 and prior thereto, the
taxing officers of Cass County assessed the lands, and levied taxes
thereon, which remained unpaid October 6, 1885, on which date the
treasurer of the county proceeded to sell them for delinquent
taxes, and plaintiff became the purchaser, and it was to recover
the purchase money so paid that the action was brought. No question
is made as to the regularity of the tax sale or the proceedings
leading thereto.
Page 142 U. S. 290
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the facts in the
foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case comes before us on motion to dismiss the writ of
error.
The question arising for determination in the state court was
whether the money which had been paid by the purchaser of the lands
at the tax sale could be recovered back either at common law or
under the Dakota statute in that behalf. The ground upon which the
tax title was held to have failed was that the United States had a
lien upon the lands, and that therefore they could not, under the
laws of the United States, be sold for taxes, but that fact did not
impress with a federal character the inquiry as to the right of
recovery.
It is earnestly urged that the lands were "a part of the public
domain of the United States," and as no tax could therefore be
imposed thereon, that they were not within the jurisdiction of the
Territory of Dakota, or its taxing officers, for the purpose of
assessment and taxation; that this was an immunity under the
Constitution and laws of the United States which was specially set
up and claimed by appellant, and that the decision of the state
court was against such immunity. But the Supreme Court of North
Dakota held that in view of the decision of this Court in
Northern Pacific Railroad v. Traill County, 115 U.
S. 600, the lands were not taxable at the time the taxes
were assessed and levied, and that nothing passed by the sale. The
exemption of the lands from taxation was, in other words, fully
recognized and allowed.
Plaintiff in error insists that although, in the absence of
statute, the purchaser of a defective title at a tax sale cannot
recover back the money paid, yet there is no exception to this rule
where there is no jurisdiction whatever to impose the tax, and that
this case comes within that exception because the assessor had no
jurisdiction to decide whether the lands in
Page 142 U. S. 291
question were or were not taxable. And he contends that the
Supreme Court of North Dakota decided against the right of recovery
at common law not upon the ground that such recovery could not be
had even where there was an absolute want of jurisdiction, but upon
the ground that if the assessor, in good faith and relying upon the
record as it appeared to him, assessed the lands against private
parties in possession, though they in fact belonged to the United
States, such act would not be without jurisdiction, although the
assessment could not be sustained. Hence it is argued that the
court decided against the immunity from the jurisdiction of the
assessor.
Since, however, it was because the exemption was sustained that
the purchaser at the tax sale brought this action, the reasoning of
the state court cannot be availed of by him as a denial of an
immunity to which he was entitled. It was the assessor's duty under
the Dakota statutes to return a tax list including all the lands
that were taxable, and in doing so he passed upon the question
whether they were or were not taxable, and if he put upon the list
lands that were exempt, and those lands were sold for taxes,
whether the purchase money could be recovered back was,
irrespective of the statute, purely a common law question, which
was not changed by the fact that the exemption arose under the laws
of the United States. As between the plaintiff and the county, it
was for the state court to decide whether a recovery could be had,
and that decision embraced no direct ruling upon a federal question
adverse to the plaintiff, even though it were based upon the ground
that the assessor had jurisdiction to the extent stated.
In
Williams v. Weaver, 100 U.
S. 547, the plaintiff sought to hold the defendants
individually liable for the sum which he was compelled to pay as
taxes on his shares of national bank stock by reason of the
wrongful assessment thereof for the year 1874, made by them in
their official character as the Board of Assessors of the City of
Albany, and Mr. Justice Miller, delivering the opinion of the
Court, said:
"The court of appeals, in its opinion, conceding the assessment
to be in many respects erroneous and to the prejudice of plaintiff,
holds that, in the absence of fraud or intentional wrong, the
Page 142 U. S. 292
defendants were not personally liable in damages for any error
in the assessment. Whether that court decided that question
correctly or not, it is not a federal question, but one of general
municipal law, to be governed either by the common law or the
statute law of the state. In either case, it presents no question
on which this Court is authorized to review the judgment of a state
court. That decision is also conclusive of the whole case. If the
defendants, in assessing property for taxation, incur no personal
liability for any error they may commit, the fact that the error
consisted in a misconstruction of an act of Congress can make no
difference. An officer whose duty personally, as the Court of
Appeals of New York holds, is mainly judicial, is no more liable
for a mistaken construction of an act of Congress than he would be
for mistaking the common law or a state statute."
In
The Banks v. The
Mayor, 7 Wall. 16, cited and relied on by plaintiff
in error, an act of the New York Legislature authorized the issue
of bonds by way of refunding to banks such portions of a tax as had
been assessed on federal securities, exempted by the Constitution
and statutes of the United States from taxation, and the officers
who were empowered to issue the obligations refused to sign them
because, as they alleged, a portion of the securities for the tax
on which the banks claimed reimbursement was, in law, not exempt,
and the highest court of the state sanctioned this refusal. There,
the decision by the state court was against the exemption claimed,
and it was held that this was a decision against a right,
privilege, or immunity claimed under the Constitution or a statute
of the United States, and that therefore this Court had
jurisdiction.
In the case at bar, as we have said, the lands were held to be
not taxable, and the question of the jurisdiction of the assessor,
in the first instance, in making the assessment, was not so
resolved as to deny the exemption. We do not understand it to be
contended that, so far as the decision of the state court rested
upon the construction of the statute, any federal question was
involved.
The writ of error is
Dismissed.
