President of Georgetown College v. Perkins

Alvey, 0. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The-land of Magruder, the judgment debtor, was levied upon and sold by the sheriff under an execution ⁷⁴ issued upon a senior judgment, and the money was brought into Court to be applied under the Court's direction. The land was seized on the 5th day of July, 1889, and was sold by the sheriff on the 19th of September, 1889.

A large claim for taxes in arrear, both State and county, covering a period from 1876 to the time of the sale, was filed for allowance out of the proceeds of sale, by the officer authorized to collect the same, under section 64 of Article 81 of the Code, which provides thát “whenever a sale of either real or personal property shall he made by any ministerial officer, under judicial process or otherwise, all sums due and in arrear for taxes from the party whose property is sold, shall be first paid and satisfied.” There was also filed a claim, for payment out of the proceeds of sale, of balances due on two junior judgments against the execution debtor; and the holders of these latter judgments interposed, by war of exception, the Statute of Limitation to the allowance of any part of the claim for taxes levied for county purposes, which had been levied more than four years previously. The provision of the statute is, that all taxes levied for county or city purposes shall be collected within four years after the same shall have been levied; and if the same shall not be collected “within four years, the parties from ivhom such taxes may he demanded, may plead this section in har of any recovery of the sam.e.” Oode, Art. 81, sec. 83. It is not insisted that the taxes claimed have been paid by the judgment debtor, but that they are subject to the bar of the Statute, and that judgment creditors are entitled to avail themselves of the statutory bar to defeat their recovery. But, without conceding that judgment creditors occupy any such position in respect to the property of the debtor as to entitle them to invoke the bar of the Statute, it is answered in this case, and the truth of the answer is conceded, that the judgment ⁷⁵ debtor, the owner of the land, and from whom the taxes claimed were due and owing, had repeatedly, within the four years immediately preceding the time of the exception taken, promised the collector to pay all of said taxes, with interest, and the costs thereon.

That, on the 8th of August, 1887, he made payment in part of the county taxes for 1876, and on that day, and frequently before and since, he admitted all of the taxes included in the statement filed to be due by him, and has frequently promised to pay the same. That, on the 11th of August, 1887, he signed a written agreement, authorizing the collector to sell one of the parcels of land seized and sold by the sheriff, for the express purpose of paying off all of said taxes, with interest, and the cost that had accrued thereon. Whether a judgment creditor of a living debtor who may owe taxes, is a party from whom such taxes may be demanded, or are demandable, within the meaning of the statute, is a question that we need not decide in this case. A judgment