Randall v. Austin

Citations

• 46 Cal. 54

Syllabus

<p>Outside Lands in San Fbanoisco.—Order Humber Eight Hundred, of the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, prescribing the payment of taxes and assessments as a condition upon which persons in possession of outside lands in said city should be entitled to the benefit of the Act of Congress of March 8th, 1866, did not contemplate the payment of taxes and assessments twice on the same land.</p> <p>Idem.—It was the intention of said order, that such taxes and assessments should be paid by the person, or his predecessor in interest, who was in possession March 8th,1866, or had been wrongfully deprived of the possession, and was entitled to recover it. The Act of March 14th, 1870, prescribing the method of proceeding for the possessors to obtain from said city a conveyance of said land entitled to record, which requires contesting claimants each of them to pay to the Tax Collector the taxes and assessments on the land, was intended to enforce amere deposit of the taxes and assessments, and the unsuccessful party to the litigation has a right to withdraw his deposit.</p> <p>Idem.—So long as the Tax Collector retains such taxes and assessments, it is his duty to pay the same to the unsuccessful litigant; and he will not be allowed to set up as a defense that the City and County of San Francisco is the proper party to be sued.</p> <p>Fund in Hands op Public Offices.—A public officer who holds in his hands a fund which rightfully belongs to a private person, but which the officer ought to have paid into the public treasury, will not be permitted, in an action brought against him by the rightful owner of the fund, to set up as a defense a breach of his official duty in not paying the fund into the treasury. •</p>