Latrobe v. Mayor of Baltimore

Cochran, J., delivered the.opinion-of this Court: This is an appeal from a judgment obtained in a suit at law, brought to recover taxes assessed on mortgages of property in the city of Baltimore, made to the appellant as trustee of the estate of Joseph Thornburg, deceased. At the time of the assessment and institution of the suit, the appellant was a resident of Howard county, the cestui que trusts being, at the same time, residents of Baltimore city, and the question as to the liability of the appellant for the taxes assessed,-is the only one jircsented. We are not aware that the Acts of Assembly, regulating the imposition and collection of taxes, have effected any modification of the rules of law, which otherwise must govern the determination of this question. The appellee, in resorting to its remedy at law, assumes that the taxes assessed constitute a legal cause of action, and that the appellant, as the holder of the legal title of the property ²¹ upon which the assessment was made, ife liable for its satisfaction.

That taxes assessed upon a trust estate, constitute a legal cause of action against the holder of the legal title, we do not doubt, for at law the legal estate in the hands of a trustee, has the legal incidents and obligations of an absolute title, subject only to the claims in equity of the cestui que trust.. Crabb on Real Property, 55 Law Lib., 399; 97 Law Lib., 257. Willis on Trustees, 10 Law Lib., 21 72, 83. Denton vs. Denton, 17 Md. Rep., 403 .

In this case, the appellant was the holder of the legal estate, upon the vahinihn of which the taxes sought to be recovered wer< i i n;- -u Í, mi'! upon our construction of the 13th Art. o'" t’. ihg’rs, as well as upon the general rule stated, he was í'ic proper person to be assessed for their payment: The declaration in that Art. of the duty or obligation of every person holding property in the State to contribute his proportion of public taxes, according to his actual worth in real or personal property, must be understood as intending and meaning a legal obligation to contribute to the public taxes, according to