City of Port Townsend v. Eisenbeis

Citations

• 28 Wash. 533
• 68 P. 1045
• 1902 Wash. LEXIS 516

Syllabus

<p>MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS-ACTION TO FORECLOSE TAX LIENS-CAPACITY TO SUE.</p> <p>A city of tbe third, class has legal capacity to sue and a right to maintain an action to foreclose the lien of taxes, under the power granted by Bal.' Code, § 945, which provides that all taxes shall constitute liens on the property assessed, which may be enforced by actions in any court of competent jurisdiction to foreclose such liens.</p> <p>SAME-REORGANIZATION-RIGHT OF NEW CORPORATION TO DELINQUENT TAXES DUE OLD CORPORATION.</p> <p>Where a city was entitled under its special charter to have a lien upon real property until taxes assessed thereon should be paid, with power to enforce collection by summary process, it did not lose such -rights by re-incorporating under general laws which provided (Bal. Code, § 704) that such reorganization should in no wise affect or impair the city’s title to any demands, liabilities or obligations existing in its favor, and that (Bal. Code, § 945) all taxes, including those for previous years, might be enforced either by summary sale of the property upon which the same were liens or by action in court to foreclose such liens; but, under the latter statute, the city acquired the additional right of enforcing its lien for taxes by suit, as well as by summary sale.</p> <p>SAME — LIMITATIONS AGAINST FORECLOSURE OF TAX LIENS.</p> <p>The general statute of limitations, enacted in 1854, and providing that “actions can only be commenced within the periods herein prescribed, after the cause of action shall have accrued, except when in -special cases a different limitation is prescribed by statute,” is inapplicable to actions by the city of Port Townsend to foreclose tax liens, when it contains no specific provision in regard to actions of that character, in view of the fact that the grant of a special charter to the city of Port Townsend, enacted by the legislature in 1881, provided that the taxes levied thereunder should have the effect of a judgment, and th