Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/343

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BUDGE v. CITY OF GRAND FORKS.
319

fide purchaser as that term is understood in the law, because a bona fide purchaser is one who buys an apparent good title without notice of anything calculated to impair or affect it; but the tax-payer is always deemed to have such notice when the record shows defects. He cannot shut his eyes to what has been recorded for the benfit of all concerned, and, relying implicitly on the action of the officers, assume that what they have done is legal because they have done it. * * * The law never assumes the existence of jurisdictional facts, and throughout the tax proceedings the general rule is that the taking of an important step is a judrisdictional prerequisite to the next, and it cannot therefore be assumed because one is shown to have been taken that the officer performed his duty in taking that which should have preceded it. The tax purchaser buys, therefore, under the rule of caveat emptor, and, under common-law rules, would get nothing unless he got the land itself.” In Desty on Taxation, 850, the same principles are stated at length, and with equal emphasis, and the author says: “Except as limited and qualified by express statutory provisions, the rule (caveat emptor) applies to all purchasers at tax sales, and if the public has nothing to sell the purchaser gets nothing. Purchasers are bound to know at their peril that the supposed delinquent is in fact delinquent; that he has been lawfully assessed, and has failed to make payment. * * * The purchaser at a municipal sale for taxes, buys at his own risk, and at his peril investigates the proceedings. A county does not guaranty tax-titles, except as the statute may provide, and cannot refund money upon the failure of such titles.”

The principles laid down by these text-writers are fully sustained by the following authorities: Lynde v. Melrose, supra; Casselbury v. Piscataway Tp., supra; Phillips v. Jefferson Co., 5 Kan. 412; Commissioners v. Walker, 8 Kan. 431; Sapp v. Commissioners, 20 Kan. 243; County of Lyon v.‘ Goddard, 22 Kan. 389; Sullivan v. Davis, 29 Kan. 28; Rice v. Auditor General, 30 Mich. 12; Hamilton v. Valiant, 30 Md. 139; Jenks v. Wright, 61 Pa. St. 410; Packard v. New Limerick, 34 Me. 266; Wilmerton v. Phillips, 103 Ill. 78; Loomis v. County of Los Angeles, 59 Cal. 456; City of Logansport v. Humphrey, 84 Ind.