Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/650

 638 FEDERAL REFOKTEB. �m rem to enforoe liens for taxes upon the lands laxed strictly in pur- suance of the statute ; while, in this case, it is olaimed that the action is simply,on6 in assumpsit at common law to recover a debt due, with- out any reference to the mode in which the liability accrued; and that the execution in the ordinary form, upon a personal money judg- ment, was issued to and property sold under it in another county, which property had no relation whatever to the taxes, there being no lien upon it till an actual levy of the execution. But upon looking into the judgment roll it is apparent on tho record that the action is for taxes, and it expressly purports to be brought under the provisions of that act. The allegations of the complaint and all the proceedings are strictly in parsuanee of the provisions of that act, and, in other respects, of the Code of Civil Procedure, which are made applicable by the terms of the act, except so far as limited by that act itself. The complaint described the lands situated in San Joaquin county upon which the taxes were assessed, and upon which they were a lien, and prayed a judgment for sale of the premises to satisfy the lien. But when we corne to the judgment which was entered in default of an answer, there is, it is true, simply a personal judgment for so mueh money; that is to say, only a part of the relief prayed in the complaint, and to which the people were entitled under the act, was granted. Why the district attorney did not take all the relief prayed, and which the statute under which he proceeded author- ized, when he had a lien upon the 11 leagues of land upon which the^ taxes sued for were asssessed, does not appear. It is a public his- torical fact, however, well known in California, that the decree of the district court confirming the Moquelemos grant was, in 1860, reversed by the United States supreme court upon principles that would nec- essarily resuit, as it finally did, in its ultimate rejection as fraudu- lent, (U. S. V. Pico, 22 How. 407;) and if it is admissible to indulge in conjectures, it is not improbable that the failure of title to the lands assessed rendered a decree for a sale useless, and made it nec- essary to look elsewhere for satisfaction of the now baseless taxes sued for assessed against Pico and the land. Be this as it may, the proceedings up to this point were in strict conformity to the act validating the taxes for those years in question, and providing a mode for their collection, and only fell short in that the judgment did not give all the relief to which the complainants were entitled. �The act authorized the relief granted in the form granted, and more. The supreme court of California necessauily regarded the action as brought under this act, and as not being otherwise authorized by law. ��� �