Parshall v. Treasurer of City of Detroit

Plaintiffs were the owners of real property, popularly known as the Kern Block, in downtown Detroit. Until December, 1959, the property was leased by the Ernst Kern Company. The lease agreement provided that the company would pay the real property taxes; and until 1959, such taxes were assessed to the company, not the landowners.

Some of the taxes for the years 1958 and 1959 were not paid by the company and all of the land became subject to liens for the unpaid taxes. In 1960, after the Kern Company failed, the property owners of the various parcels herein involved asked the city assessors to…