Cooper v. Cooper

If, in the development of our jurisprudence, we are compelled to proceed on the ratchet principle, we need to go no further. We stop with Sibley v. Townsend, 206 N. C., 648, 175 S. E., 107, although that case admittedly discusses no equities, is inadvertent to the fact that there may be equities involved and that the statute penalizing the life tenant by loss of his estate on failure to pay taxes or to redeem the land was a remedy applied to an evil that no longer exists, and looks alone to the forfeiture law without any reference to such changes in the taxing laws as compels the court to…