This action was brought and prosecuted to final judgment in the
state courts of. Louisiana. Its object was to recover land in New
Orleans which had been sold for nonpayment of taxes and had passed
from the purchaser at the tax sale by sundry mesne conveyances to
the defendant. The grounds on which it was sought to avoid the sale
were alleged defects in the statement of the name and of the sex of
the owner in the advertisements of sale. The judgment of the trial
court was in favor of the defendant, and that judgment was affirmed
by the supreme court of the state. Touching the objections made to
the proceedings the latter court said:
"The act of 1884 makes the deed conclusive of the sufficiency of
the assessment of the property sold under it. The question of the
competency of this legislation in this respect has been before this
court on repeated occasions. The argument now addressed to us
against the constitutionality and interpretation of the act must be
viewed as directed against a series of decisions of this court. To
those decisions we must adhere."
It was claimed in argument here that, though no federal question
was directly raised in the trial in the state court, one was
necessarily involved in the decision.
Held that this Court
had no jurisdiction to review the decision of the supreme court of
the state.
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff in error, who was plaintiff in the trial court and
appellant in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, prosecutes this writ
of error to the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana
affirming a decision of the trial court. The suit was commenced in
the Civil District Court of the Parish of
Page 168 U. S. 675
Orleans to recover a square of ground situated in the City of
New Orleans, the proceeding being known under the Louisiana Code as
a "petitory action." C.P. Art. 43
et seq. The petition
alleged the ownership by the plaintiff of the square of ground, and
averred that the defendant McConnico was in possession, and
claiming title thereto. It alleged that the source from which the
defendant asserted his title to have been deraigned was a tax sale
made by a state tax collector in November, 1885, to enforce
delinquent state taxes for the years 1876, 1877, and 1878 at which
sale Orloff Lake was the purchaser. It was averred that Lake sold
the property thus bought by him, in December, 1885, to one
Lallance, who, in January, 1891, sold it to Lang; that he in turn
sold, in February, 1892, to Fitzpatrick and Reese, each in equal
undivided proportions, and that each of them, in 1893 and 1894,
respectively, conveyed their undivided interest to the defendant
McConnico. The petition charged that the tax sale upon which the
title of the defendant rested was absolutely void because, although
the property belonged to the petitioner, whose name was Rafael
Maria Del Castillo, the taxes thereon for the years 1876, 1877, and
1878, to enforce the payment of which the tax sale had been made,
were assessed in the name of R. Castillo. It was also alleged that
the tax sale was void because, in the advertisement which preceded
it and which was made by the Louisiana law a prerequisite to a
valid sale, the property was described as belonging to Rafael Maria
Del Castillo, or her estate and heirs; that, as petitioner was a
male person, the adding to the name the words "or her estate and
heirs" caused the advertisement to be nothing worth, and the sale
thereunder to be null. The various acts of sale in the chain of
title from Lake, the purchaser at the tax sale, to the defendant
McConnico, were referred to in the petition, which prayed that not
only the tax sale, but all these various transfers between the
several parties, be declared to be void, and the petitioner be
recognized as the owner of the property, and entitled to the
possession thereof.
McConnico, the defendant, by answer asserted the validity of his
title and called his vendor in warranty, who in turn, by
Page 168 U. S. 676
answer, became a defendant in the cause, set up the validity of
his title, and called his vendor in warranty, and so on down to and
including Lallance, the transferee from Lake, who bought at the tax
sale. All the defendants who were called in warranty averred that
they were purchasers in good faith for adequate value, one alleging
that, after contracting to buy the property from his vendor, he
became doubtful about the validity of the tax sale, and had
declined to carry out his contract, and that, in a suit brought
against him to compel compliance a final decree, had passed between
himself and his vendor adjudging the title to be valid, and
compelling him to become the purchaser under his agreement, the
price paid being the full value of the property. Another of the
defendants averred that after his purchase of the property, finding
that it had been forfeited to the State of Louisiana for taxes due
by Castillo subsequent to the years to enforce which the tax sale
had been made, he had paid the sum of the taxes, and thus held the
property not only under the tax sale, but under the title which the
State of Louisiana had acquired by forfeiting the property, and
which inured to his benefit in consequence of his having made the
redemption. One of the defendants (McConnico) specifically pleaded
by way of exception the conclusive presumptions created by Act No.
82 of 1884, as debarring the court from considering the errors in
the assessment and sale which were alleged in the petition. Two of
the other defendants, reserving the defenses set up in their
respective answers, excepted on the ground of no cause of action.
The Act No. 82 of 1884, which was necessarily pleaded by
McConnico's exception, and the consideration of which was also
presented by the exceptions of no cause of action filed by the two
other defendants, was substantially as follows: it made it the duty
of the tax collectors to advertise for sale at public auction "all
property on which there remained unpaid taxes due to the state
prior to December 1, 1879." It provided for thirty days'
advertisement, and directed the tax collectors, where property was
bought at a tax sale, to make a deed thereof to the purchaser, and
the deed thus to be made the statute said,
"shall be
prima facie evidence
Page 168 U. S. 677
of the following facts: 1st. that the property conveyed was
subject to taxation; 2d., that none of the taxes for which said
property was offered were paid,
and said deed shall be
conclusive evidence of the following facts: 1st, that the
property was assessed according to law; 2d, that the taxes were
levied according to law; 3d, that the property was advertised
according to law; 4th, that the property was adjudicated and sold
as stated in said deed; and 5th, that all the prerequisites of the
law were complied with by all the officers from the assessment up
to and including the execution and registry of the deed to said
purchaser, and duly certified copies of said deeds shall be full
proof without further evidence of all contained therein."
Acts La. 1884, p. 104.
The trial court heard the exceptions separately from the merits,
and overruled them. The case was subsequently tried, and judgment
was rendered in favor of the defendants, rejecting the demand of
the plaintiff. This judgment was, on appeal, affirmed by the
Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana.
Castillo v.
McConnico, 47 La.Ann. 1473. The court, in its opinion, which
is a part of the record in this cause,
Egan v. Hart,
165 U. S. 187,
165 U. S. 189,
after deciding that the tax sale in question was authorized by the
state statute, said:
"It is argued on behalf of the plaintiff that the property was
not properly assessed for taxes prior to 1879, because the
assessment was in the name of R. Castillo, instead of Rafael Maria
Del Castillo. We are relieved of the necessity of passing on the
question of the sufficiency of this assessment. The act of 1884
makes the deed conclusively of the sufficiency of the assessment of
the property sold under it. The question of the competency of this
legislation in this respect has been before this court on repeated
occasions. The argument now addressed to us against the
constitutionality and interpretation of the act must be viewed as
directed against a series of decisions of this court. To those
decisions we must adhere, and hold the act precludes the inquiry.
In the Matter of Orloff Lake, 40 La.Ann. 142;
In re
Douglas, 41 La.Ann. 765;
Breaux v. Negrotto, 43
La.Ann. 426
et seq. "
Page 168 U. S. 678
Referring to the thirty-days' advertisement which preceded the
tax sale, the court said:
"In this case, the advertisement gave the full name of
plaintiff, adding 'her estate or heirs.' In our view, the
advertisement conformed to the requirement of the act."
The defendant in error asserts that we have no jurisdiction to
review the decision of the state court, because no federal question
appears by the record to have been raised either in the trial court
or in the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and because no question of
that nature was decided in either of these courts, or, if a federal
controversy was passed upon by the supreme court of the state, the
decree of that court is sufficiently sustained, apart from any
federal question which may have been referred to in the opinion. To
the contrary, the plaintiff in error contends that a federal
question was necessarily involved in, and was passed on, by the
decision below, and that the issue so determined was there duly
presented for consideration. The first of these propositions is
thus evolved: the defects asserted to exist in the tax assessment
and sale were, it is claimed, so radical in their nature that they
would, if they had been considered, have caused the assessment and
sale to amount to a denial of due process of law under the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. From
this premise is deduced the conclusion that the action of the state
supreme court in refusing to consider the proof as to the existence
of the defects was equivalent to taking property without due
process of law. In other words, the argument is that the decision
below in effect held that, by virtue of the presumption engendered
by the Louisiana act of 1884, and arising from the tax collector's
deed, the plaintiff was estopped from claiming his property even
although there had been no assessment and no sale at all. While it
is conceded that the federal question, which is thus asserted to be
necessarily involved in and embraced by the decision of the Supreme
Court of Louisiana, does not appear to have been raised on the
record either in the trial court or the supreme court, this fact is
claimed to be immaterial. The system of practice prevailing in
Louisiana, it is
Page 168 U. S. 679
argued, rendered it impossible to place the federal question on
the record in the strict sense of the word, and caused it to be
possible only to present such issue by means of the brief of
counsel filed in the supreme court of the state before the hearing.
This brief, duly certified by the clerk of the Supreme Court of the
State of Louisiana, has been presented, and it is argued that in
view of the system of practice obtaining in the State of Louisiana,
this Court may look to the brief as a legitimate source of
information, and
Stewart v.
Kahn, 11 Wall. 463, is relied on as supporting this
proposition.
To decide the issue as to jurisdiction, we will at the outset
ascertain whether a federal question was necessarily involved in
the decision of the state supreme court. Even though it be that a
federal controversy was decided, nevertheless, if the questions of
a purely state character, upon which the Supreme Court of Louisiana
passed, are completely adequate to sustain the decree by that court
rendered, wholly independent of the federal question, it will
result that no federal issue is presented for review.
Egan v.
Hart, 165 U. S. 188,
165 U. S. 191;
Powell v. Brunswick County, 150
U. S. 441, and authorities referred to in both of the
foregoing cases. And, if this conclusion be reached, it will be
unnecessary to consider whether, under the practice which prevails
in Louisiana, the federal question could have been presented in any
other mode than by brief of counsel, and whether this fact would
authorize this Court to go beyond the technical record, and look to
such brief to aid in determining whether the federal issue was duly
set up and claimed.
Because the court below applied the statutory presumption of
correctness arising from the tax collector's deed and refused to
consider the alleged defects in the assessment and sale, it does
not follow that if the presumption had not been applied, and the
alleged imperfections in the assessment had been given their full
weight, that want of due process of law would have resulted from
maintaining the sufficiency of the assessment, and from upholding
the validity of the tax sale. It follows that, in order to
ascertain whether a federal question was necessarily involved in
the decision of the lower court, we are compelled
Page 168 U. S. 680
to determine whether the vices asserted to exist in the
assessment and sale were of such a nature as to cause the
enforcement of the assessment and sale to deprive the plaintiff in
error of his property without due process of law. The contention
advanced in argument on this subject is much broader than the case
justifies. Thus, it is said the state statute directs that from a
tax collector's deed a conclusive presumption of a previous
assessment shall be deduced, hence the statute in terms is
repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment, since it takes property
under a tax sale, although no assessment whatever had ever been
levied on the property so taken. But, as thus stated, the
proposition presents a purely moot question. The plaintiff in error
has no interest to assert that the statute is unconstitutional,
because it might be construed so as to cause it to violate the
Constitution. His right is limited solely to the inquiry whether,
in the case which he presents, the effect of applying the statute
is to deprive him of his property without due process of law.
We come, then, to consider whether the alleged defects in the
assessment and in the advertisement were of such a nature as to
cause the enforcement of the one and the upholding of the other to
so operate as to deprive the plaintiff of his property without due
process of law. The error in the advertisement was that, although
the publication gave the full name Rafael Maria Del Castillo, it
was accompanied with the addition "or her estate and heirs," and
the alleged defect in the assessment was that the property was
assessed in the name of R. Castillo, when the real name of the
owner was Rafael Maria Del Castillo. The decision of the state
court that the advertisement was sufficient under the Louisiana
statute involved purely a state question, which we accept and
follow. Conceding that a sale to enforce taxes made without notice,
actual or constructive, would be a want of due process of law, it
is yet obvious that the publication for thirty days required by the
state law was sufficient notice to constitute due process of law,
and that the mere fact that there was affixed to the name inserted
in the advertisement the words "or her estate and heirs" did not
destroy the efficacy of the advertisement, and
Page 168 U. S. 681
did not cause it to be, in legal contemplation, no notice
whatever. The contrary proposition could only be supported upon the
theory that although a complete description of the property and the
full name of the owner were inserted in the advertisement, the mere
addition of the words referred to were so calculated to deceive and
mislead as to render the notice legally inoperative. But such
assumption would be to the last degree technical and unreasonable,
and cannot be indulged in.
We dismiss, then, from view the alleged defects in the
advertisement, and will consider the assessment. In doing so, we
will take notice of, and give full effect to, the fact that the
name placed on the assessment roll was R. Castillo, instead of
Rafael Maria Del Castillo, which was the full name of the owner of
the property assessed. Although the law of Louisiana under which
the assessments in question were made provided for the placing of
the name of the owner on the assessment roll where such name was
known, it also directed that the property assessed should be
described in the assessment roll. The statutes, moreover, expressly
fixed a time when the assessment rolls should be exposed for
examination and correction, and furnished ample opportunity not
only for revision as to valuation, but also for judicial correction
of any legal error which might be asserted to exist in the
assessment. The notice required by the statute to be given of the
opening of the assessment rolls for inspection and revision was not
addressed to each particular person assessed, but was afforded by a
general publication, calling upon all persons having property
subject to taxation to come forward and ask for such correction as
they desired to have made. Louisiana Acts, Extra Session of 1877,
pp. 154, 155; Louisiana Acts of 1871, p. 118. Beyond peradventure,
this statute afforded both constructive and actual notice of the
making of the assessment, and ample opportunity to any property
owner to correct or resist the same if he deemed himself injured
thereby. It cannot be doubted that, in the exercise of its taxing
power, the State of Louisiana could have directed that the property
subject to its taxing authority should be assessed without any
Page 168 U. S. 682
reference whatever ever to the name of the owner -- that is to
say, by any such description and method as would have been legally
adequate to convey either actual or constructive notice to me
owner. As said in
Witherspoon v.
Duncan, 4 Wall. 217:
"It is not the province of this Court to interfere with the
policy of the revenue laws of the states, nor with the
interpretation given to them by their courts. Arkansas has the
right to determine the manner of levying and collecting taxes, and
can declare that the particular tract of land shall be chargeable
with the taxes, no matter who is the owner, or in whose name it is
assessed and advertised, and that an erroneous assessment does not
vitiate a sale for taxes."
The claim, then, is that the assessment in question did not
constitute due process of law within the Fourteenth Amendment,
because of error in the name of the owner, although the assessment
would have been due process if, under the state law, it had not
been required to mention the name of the owner -- that is to say
that the assessment is repugnant to the Constitution of the United
States because of the lesser, when it would not have been in
conflict with the Constitution for the greater, omission. This
deduction demonstrates the error of the proposition relied on, and
it cannot be escaped by saying that although the state had the
power, without violating due process of law, to dispense with the
name, nevertheless where the state statute has directed the use of
a name in making an assessment, a defective giving thereof renders
the assessment wholly void, and a want of due process of law. This
argument is answered by
Williams v. Supervisors of Albany,
122 U. S. 154,
where, in considering the power of a state as to the assessment and
collection of taxes, speaking through Mr. Justice Field, it was
said:
"The mode in which the property shall be appraised, by whom its
appraisement shall be made, the time within which it shall be done,
what certificate of their action shall be furnished, and when
parties shall be heard for the correction of errors, are matters
resting in its discretion. Where directions upon the subject might
originally have been dispensed with or executed at another time,
irregularities arising from
Page 168 U. S. 683
neglect to follow them may be remedied by the legislature unless
its action in this respect is restrained by constitutional
provisions prohibiting retrospective legislation. It is only
necessary, therefore, in any case, to consider whether the
assessment could have been ordered originally without requiring the
proceedings, the omission or defective performance of which is
complained of, or without requiring them within the time
designated. If they were not essential to any valid assessment, and
therefore might have been omitted or performed at another time,
their omission or defective performance may be cured by the same
authority which directed them, provided, always, that intervening
rights are not impaired."
The vice which underlies the entire argument of the plaintiff in
error arises from a failure to distinguish between the essentials
of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment and matters
which may or may not be essential under the terms of a state
assessing or taxing law. The two are neither correlative nor
coterminous. The first -- due process of law -- must be found in
the state statute, and cannot be departed from without violating
the Constitution of the United States. The other depends on the
lawmaking power of the state, and, as it is solely the result of
such authority, may vary or change as the legislative will of the
state sees fit to ordain. It follows that, to determine the
existence of the one (due process of law) is the final province of
this Court, while the ascertainment of the other (that is, what is
merely essential under the state statute) is a state question
within the final jurisdiction of courts of last resort of the
several states. When, then, a state court decides that a particular
formality was or was not essential under the state statute, such
decision presents no federal question, providing always the statute
as thus construed does not violate the Constitution of the United
States by depriving of property without due process of law. This
paramount requirement being fulfilled, as to other matters, the
state interpretation of its own law is controlling and decisive.
This distinction is pointed out by the decisions of this Court.
Pittsburg, Cincinnati &c.
Railway Co. v. Backus,
Page 168 U. S. 684
154 U. S. 421;
Kentucky Railroad Tax Cases, 115
U. S. 322;
Davidson v. New Orleans,
96 U. S. 97.
Bearing the foregoing elementary principle in mind, we will
briefly notice the adjudicated cases upon which the plaintiff in
error relies.
The authorities referred to tending to establish that, where the
law requires an assessment to contain the name, the omission of the
name renders the assessment void, are inapposite to the question
under consideration. We are not here concerned with the meaning of
the Louisiana statutes, or whether we would hold as an original
proposition, were we construing them, that a defect in the name of
the person assessed would not be a material variance. The Supreme
Court of the State of Louisiana has construed the statutes of that
state otherwise. The issue which we are to determine is not what
interpretation should be given to the statutes of the State of
Louisiana, but whether, accepting the meaning affixed to the
statutes of that state by the court of last resort of the state,
their provisions, as so interpreted, are repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States because not affording due process
of law. The previous adjudications of the Supreme Court of
Louisiana referred to by that court in its opinion, and upon which
it rested its decree in this case, in effect hold that under the
Louisiana law, a mistake in the name did not render the assessment
void, and therefore that the conclusive presumption engendered by
the Louisiana act of 1884 was not intended to, and did not, make
valid a wholly void assessment. Because, in a case decided
subsequently to the one now under review, the Supreme Court of the
State of Louisiana has held that an assessment in the name of a
person deceased rendered such assessment wholly void, it does not
follow that the court thereby departed from the ruling which it had
made in this case, and which had been by it rested upon a line of
decisions declared by it to have conclusively settled the law of
Louisiana on the subject, and which in effect it announced had
become a rule of property in that state. The case of
Marx v.
Hanthorn, 148 U. S. 172, in
no way conflicts with the foregoing considerations. That case came
to
Page 168 U. S. 685
this Court on appeal from a circuit court of the United States,
and its decision involved ascertaining the meaning of the tax laws
of the state as interpreted by the court of last resort thereof. In
performing this duty, the court adopted and followed the
construction given to the tax laws of the state by the supreme
court of the state whence the case came.
There is a claim asserted in argument that, as a particular
section of the act of 1884 provided that the sum of the bid at a
tax sale should be paid into the state treasury, therefore it is
clearly unconstitutional, since, in a case where the bid exceeded
the taxes, the surplus money of the owner would go into the state
treasury without provision for its repayment. But this is a mere
abstract contention, since the fact is that the sum bid at the tax
sale in question was less than the amount of the taxes assessed
against the property.
Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.