Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 3).pdf/91

 Cass County as the culmination of a tax sale of the lots made by the county treasurer to the defendant in October, 1887, for taxes claimed to have been assessed against the lots by the county officials of Cass County in the year 1886. The answer further states that after such sale defendant paid certain other sums as and for taxes upon the lots, which were claimed to have been assessed by the county authorities subsequent to the year 1886. Defendant further alleges that said deeds were not only regular in themselves, but were given pursuant to valid tax sales made for delinquent taxes; that the taxes for which the lots were sold were properly assessed, equalized, and levied by the proper officers of the city and county, respectively, at the proper time and in the proper manner. The affirmative matter contained in the answer was pleaded as a counterclaim, and plaintiff replied thereto, denying the whole thereof, except that the tax sales and deeds were made and delivered, and the sums alleged were paid by defendant as subsequent taxes; also that plaintiff neither paid nor tendered any of the taxes before instituting the action. The trial was had before the court, and, after findings were filed in plaintiffs favor, judgment was entered adjudging the plaintiff to be the owner of the lots, annulling the tax deeds as void, and for costs. It will suffice here to say that the trial court, for various reasons, set out in the findings, held that the alleged taxes for which the lots were sold were never lawfully assessed or levied against the lots, and for that reason the sales were illegal, and that, no taxes being lawfully assessed or levied, none need be paid or tendered preliminary to the action. A bill of exceptions was settled, and the evidence comes up with the record.

In deciding the case we shall not refer in detail to all the objections urged by plaintiff's counsel against the validity of the tax sales and tax deeds through and by which defendant claims to be the owner of the land. We are unanimously of the opinion that the tax sales were illegal sales, and that the deeds given in pursuance of such sales are invalid, and hence convey no title to the defendant. The facts upon which this conclusion rests are