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Taxing District of Brownsville v. Loague, States for the Western district of Tennessee, bringing under review the judgment of that court awarding a peremptory mandamus in favor of John Loague, administrator of R D Baker, deceased, against the board of commissioners of the taxing district of the city of Brownsville, Tenn, to proceed 'to levy and collect and pay over to petitioner a tax sufficient to pay each and all' of certain judgments described in the petition for such mandamus The petition was filed March 19, 1886, and set forth that Baker was in his life-time the owner and holder for value of certain coupons representing interest on certain bonds issued by the city of Brownsville, Tenn, under an act of the general assembly of that state passed February 8, 1870, (being the act referred to in the foregoing cause of Norton v Taxing Dist, ante, 322,) upon which he obtained four judgments against said city in said court, namely, one March 1, 1876, for $2,628, and costs of suit; another December 20, 1876, for the sum of $82250, and costs; another December 21, 1877, for the sum of $82266, and costs; another on the 14th day of December, 1878, for the sum of $82160, and costs That executions were issued on all of said judgments, upon which returns of nulla bona were made, and thereupon said Baker instituted proceedings on three of said judgments to compel by mandamus the levy and collection of a tax to satisfy said judgments and costs; which resulted in the collection of $1,200 on the first judgment, and an unavailing assessment and levy on the second, and perhaps on the third, but that, except as to the amount aforesaid, all of said judgments remained unpaid That on the 24th of February, 1879, the general assembly of Tennessee repealed the character of the city of Brownsville, but provided in the repealing act that it should 'not be so construed as to impair the obligation of existing contracts into which said corporation has heretofore entered' That by an act of the general assembly of Tennessee approved March 14, 1879, it was provided that the governor of the state should appoint an officer for the corporations whose charters had been repealed, to be known as a receiver and back-tax collector, whose duty it should be to collect all back taxes of such municipalities remaining uncollected at the repeal of their charters That such officer was appointed for Brownsville, but did not qualify, and it was impossible for petitioner's intestate to receive any benefit intended to be secured by the appointment and qualification of such officer; and that on the first day of April, 1881, the people and territory of the city of Brownsville were again incorporated and organized into a municipal corporations known as the "Taxing District of Brownsville," under an act entitled "An act to establish taxing districts of the second class, and to provide the means of local government therfor," which is given in substance in said petition, together with certain provisions of an act amendatory thereof, passed April 4, 1885 Reference is also made to an act of January 31, 1879, applicable to "the several communities embraced in the territorial limits of all such minicipal corporations in this state as have had, or may have, their charters abolished;" and which provides, as to the commissioners and trustee constituting governing agencies, that "no writ of mandamus or other process shall lie to compel them to levy any taxes, nor shall the commissioners or said trustee, nor the local government created by this act, pay or b liable for any debt created by said extinct corporation, nor shall any of the taxes collected under this act ever be used for the payment of any of said debts," which prohibition in that act, and acts amendatory thereof, petitioner insists is null and void Petitioner avers that defendants have, under the act of April 1, 1881, and the act of April 4, 1885, power to levy and collect taxes to pay said judgments, and then says "that the defendant corporation, the taxing district of Brownsville, and its predecessor, the city of Brownsville, have no assets or means of payment of petitioner's judgments aforesaid, and petitioner's only remedy to enforce the collection of his judgments is that awarded by the act authorizing the issue of the bonds from which the coupons were detached upon which said judgments were obtained, and petitioner is advised that said remedy remains in full force against the defendants as the municipal authorities of the taxing district of Brownsville, and can be invoked against them as effectually as it could have been against the corporate authorities of the city of Brownsvill before its charter was repealed" Petitioner prays, in conclusion, together with other relief not material to be mentioned here, for an alternative writ, on hearing to be made peremptory, "commanding defendants to levy and collect a tax sufficient to pay petitioner's judgments aforesaid, and all costs on same, and all costs incurred in his mandamus proceedings heretofore had by his intestate to collect the same" .
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