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57 Miss. 138

Smith v. Nelson

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided October 15, 1879

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1879-10-15

Hon. B. F. Trimble, Judge. Ejectment by the plaintiff in error, who claimed under the tax title described in the opinion of the court. Held: and it is presumable that due notice, if any was required under § 1687, was given. Williams v. OammacJc, 27 Miss. 209. The tax deed is prima facie evidence of the legality of the assessment and proceedings. Code 1871, §§ 1697, 1700; Virden v. Bowers, 55 Miss. 1. The acts of the supervisors at an illegal meeting are void.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Our boards of supervisors are partly legislative and partly judicial in their character. They are judicial as to their times of meeting, that is to say, their terms are fixed by law, duration limited, and the mode of calling special terms, carefully prescribed by statute. . . . They have no more power to adjourn by resolution or order from one term to a day intermediate between the day of adjournment and their next regular meeting, than the Supreme, the circuit, or the chancery courts have.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Hunter v. Bennett

Relies on Doe ex dem. Jones v. Burford

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1879-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently September 1961

7 state decisions

301879188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Chalmers, J.,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2The validity of the plaintiff’s'tax-deed depends upon the validity of the levy of taxes made by the board of supervisors of Issaquena County in September, 1871; and this in turn depends upon whether the boards of supervisors in this State can by order on their minutes adjourn, at the expiration of a term, to a day named other than that appointed by law for their regular meetings. The board of supervisors of Issaquena County met in July, 1871, at the time designated by law for levying the county taxes, but without making the levy adjourned by resolution until the first Monday in August. Upon the day named they met again, and adjourned over until the first Monday in September. Again they met and adjourned over until the fourth Monday of September, upon which last-named day they met and made the levy. These repeated delays grew out of the failure of the tax assessor to complete and file the assessment roll of the county at the proper time. Was the levy made at the adjourned meeting legal and valid ?

¶3Our boards of supervisors are partly legislative and partly judicial in their character. They are judicial as to their times of meeting, that is to say, their terms are fixed by law, duration limited, and the mode of calling special terms carefully prescribed by statute. Code 1871, §§ 1353, 1372, 1373. They have no more power to adjourn by resolution or order from one term to a day intermediate between the day of adjournment and their next regular meeting than the Supreme, the Circuit, or the Chancery Courts have. If the public interests require a special term the law prescribes for them a mode of calling it, just as it does for all other courts; and their acts at a meeting not appointed by law, or not convened in the proper manner, are as destitute of authority as would be the judgments of this or any other court rendered at a term unlawfully held. Jones v. Burford, 26 Miss. 194. It follows that the tax-deed was properly excluded.

¶4Judgment affirmed.

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