Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/348

 thorizes a recovery in this case; that, as the assessment has been declared invalid, the city has a right to reassess the property and collect this tax again; and that it would be grossly unjust to allow the city to collect a second tax, and at the same time hold the proceeds of the first; and that we cannot presume that the legislature intended to work such injustice. We will not stop to discuss whether or not a statute passed in 1889 could have any effect upon the rights or liabilities of the parties to a tax-sale made in 1884, or whether or not a party in any particular case can receive any benefit from any statute passed after the action was commenced. We are of opinion, and so hold, that the statute in question was passed exclusively for the benefit of municipalities, and to enable them to obtain their revenues, and not, directly or indirectly, for the benefit of tax-sale purchasers; and that when a municipality has once received the amount of a special assessment upon any particular piece of property, even though that special assessment was invalid, that such tax is paid, and no right of reassessment exists under the statute. If independently of this or any other statute a legal obligation rested upon the municipality to refund the amounts paid for illegal tax certificates, then it could not, perhaps, be said that the tax was paid and the right to reassess might exist; but just so long as the rule of caveat emptor applies to all purchasers at tax-sales, it must logically follow that where a municipality receives the money for a tax-sale certificate, the tax, for non-payment of which the sale was made, is paid. The claim of the municipality is satisfied, and can never again be reasserted. It is clear that appellant can claim nothing from that statute. The fact that the principles involved in this case are quite important, and are here raised for the first time in this state, together with the zeal and ability with which the points were pressed upon us by counsel, have caused us, perhaps unduly, to lengthen this opinion. The decision of the lower court was clearly in accord with the weight of authority, was strictly just, and must be affirmed. All concur.

, C. J., having been of counsel, did not sit on the hearing of this case; Judge, of the sixth judicial district, sitting by request.