STATE, EX REL. NORTHERN INVESTMENT CORPORATION,
v.
J. M. LEE, COMPTROLLER, ESCAMBIA COUNTY AND JOHN H. RAUSCER, ET AL., AS AND CONSTITUTING BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF ESCAMBIA COUNTY
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The Florida Supreme Court granted a peremptory writ of mandamus compelling the Comptroller and Board of County Commissioners to refund amounts paid for void tax sale certificates and taxes, finding the statutory scheme authorizing such refunds within legislative authority and properly invoked.
The peremptory writ of mandamus is awarded. The court determined that Section 3 of Chapter 18314 is constitutional and within legislative authority, and that the Comptroller and county officials must refund to the relator the amounts received by the State and county for the void tax certificates and taxes.
“The enactment is clearly within legislative authority and requires judicial determination of the invalidity of involved tax certificates and subsequent or omitted taxes.”
Establishes that the statute is constitutional and the courts need only determine factual invalidity, not question legislative judgment
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— This cause is before us after oral argument and consideration of briefs' on motion to award peremptory writ, the return of Respondent notwithstanding.
The sufficiency of the allegations of the alternative writ was adjudicated in our opinion and judgment rendered on consideration of motion to quash alternative writ filed herein on October 14, 1938. See 183 Sou. 838.
The record shows that the factual conditions of this case *562come within the purview of Section 3 of Chapter 18314, Acts of 1937, which reads as follows:
“Section 3.. If the holder of any tax sale certificate should pay, redeem or cause to be cancelled and surrendered any other tax sale certificate, or should pay ór redeem any subsequent and omitted taxes, in connection with an application for tax deed or in connection with any tax foreclosure proceedings, and if it should develop that said other tax sale certificate or any of said subsequent and omitted taxes are void for any reason, the Clerk shall forward a certificate of such fact to the Comptroller and enter upon the records in his office a memorandum of such fact, as provided for in Section 2 hereof, and the Comptroller, upon receipt of such certificate, if Satisfied of the correctness ■thereof, shall refund to the person so paying or redeeming such other tax sale certificate, or to the person so paying such subsequent and omitted taxes, in connection with an application for tax deed or in connection with a tax foreclosure, the amount received by the State, and thereupon the county and commissioners, and any s'chool district, school board, drainage district or other district, commission or governmental subdivision or agency, shall likewise refund the amount received by it in accordance with the provisions of Section 2 hereof.”
The enactment is clearly within legislative authority and requires judicial determination of the invalidity of involved tax. certificates and subsequent or omitted taxes. The Courts are not required to determine the wisdom of the Act.
The return admits the pertinent facts alleged and fails to set up any defense in bar or in abatement of judgment in favor of relator.
Therefore, the motion is granted and the peremptory writ is awarded.
*563So ordered.
Terrell, C. J., and Buford and Thomas, J. J., concur.
Whitfield, P. J., and Brown and Chapman, J. J., concur in the opinion and judgment.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
State ex rel. F. T. Hurner v. Culbreath, 140 Fla. 634 (Fla. 1939)…l. Hughes v. Carruthers, Clerk, 131 Fla. 840, 180 So. 27; Rogers v. Bandy, et al., 132 Fla. 790, 182 So. 281; Leatherman, Clerk, Circuit Court, v. State ex rel. Somerset Co., 133 Fla. 630, 182 So. 831; State ex rel. Northern Investment Corp. v. Lee, 136 Fla. 561, 187 So. 368. The constitutional validity of Section 9 was not raised or considered in any of these cases. It is first contended that Section 9' is violative of the due process clause of the State and Federal Constitutions (the Fourteenth Amendment…
Authorities Cited
- State v. Lee, 134 Fla. 276 (Fla. 1938)