Slattery v. Heilperin

Citations

• 110 La. 86
• 34 So. 139
• 1902 La. LEXIS 184

Syllabus

<p>PETITORY ACTION — EVIDENCE — TAXES — ASSESSMENT — TAX ’ SALE — ESTOPPEL — PRESCRIPTION-TAX TITLE — LACHES—TAX DEED —VALIDITY—LAND PATENT — VACATION—EVIDENCE.</p> <p>« 1. Even against a possessor in good faith, although without legal title, plaintiff in a petitory action must show that he has some title to the property.</p> <p>2. An assessor is without authority to assess public property of the state in the name of one without the least interest.</p> <p>3. Nothing passes by such a tax sale of the property.</p> <p>4. The state is not estopped from claiming her property by the illegal act of the assessor.</p> <p>5. Plaintiff in an action on a tax deed cannot give vitality to his title by invoking the plea of prescription, having never been in possession.</p> <p>6. One takes nothing from the public domain by the plea of prescription.</p> <p>On Rehearing.</p> <p>7.This court looks with disfavor upon a claim of ownership of land based on a tax title, where it appears the claimant, after purchase at tax sale, permitted twenty years to pass without exercising the plainest and most common, as well as important, of all the duties of ownership of property, to-wit, the payment of taxes thereon; and where it appears, or is plainly to be inferred, he only concluded to assert ownership after the land had acquired value through the completion of the levee system, to which he contributed nothing by payment of levee taxes on the land.</p> <p>8. Where a tax deed is drawn in substantial compliance with the statute, the omission from it of recital that notice had been given to the tax debtor, or that the tax collector, before offering the property in globo, had offered the least quantity of it that any purchaser would buy for the taxes, interest and costs due, does not destroy the prima, faeie valid character of the deed given it by the Constitution.</p> <p>9. It is incumbent upon the party defending against a tax title to offer some evidence of failure to give notice and of failure