Long v. Phillips

Citations

• 241 Pa. 246
• 88 A. 437
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 771

Syllabus

<p>Statutes — Implied repeal — Act of June 1901, P. L. 864 — Taxes —Levy and collection — Unseated land.</p> <p>1. It is a rule of statutory construction that an earlier law will be repealed by implication by an act covering tbe entire subject matter of tbe former law, and manifestly intended as a substitute for it. But tbis rule is founded on presumption of legislative intent, and will not apply where a contrary intent is clearly apparent.</p> <p>2. The. Act of June 4, 1901, P. L. 364, relating to the practice and procedure for the filing, collection and extent of tax and municipal claims was intended to cover the entire subject matter of the former law on that subject, and to repeal acts inconsistent therewith. That statute, however, does not contain any provisions for the collection of taxes on unseated land, for which there has been a statutory system in operation for more than a century, entirely distinct from that enacted for the collection of taxes on other subjects. It expressly repealed some two hundred statutes on the subject of taxation, but did not expressly repeal any relating to the collection of taxes on unseated lands and was not intended to repeal such statutes by implication.</p> <p>3. In an action of trespass to recover damages for cutting and carrying away growing timber, where the plaintiffs’ title depended upon a sale for taxes due upon the land as unseated, such sale was properly made under the statutes existing prior to the Act of June 4, 1901, P. L. 364.</p>