T. M. Cobb Co. v. County of Los Angeles (1976)

Citation: 16 Cal.3d 606 · Decided: April 1, 1976 · Opinion: Sullivan, J.

Source note (2026-10-18):

• Links on this page to https://static.case.law/cal-3d/16/cases/0606-01.json are an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.

Facts

A lender perfected a security interest in a manufacturer’s personal property and fixtures before the county seized them for unsecured taxes. Cobb purchased at the lender’s foreclosure sale and paid the county under protest to prevent its threatened auction, then sought a refund. No county auction actually occurred.

Holding

• Summary seizure without a prior hearing could constitutionally secure tax collection, but sale without an opportunity for an administrative hearing first violated federal and California due process. Cobb nevertheless suffered no unconstitutional sale because it paid and obtained release before an auction (pp. 613–617).
• The summary distraint power did not create superpriority over the previously perfected private security interest. The properly conducted senior secured-party sale extinguished the county’s right to seize and sell the purchased personalty for the old owner’s taxes (pp. 617–620).
• The county could not use the unsecured-roll summary process to enforce the claimed paramount fixture-tax lien as if conducting the distinct secured-roll process. Judgment for the county was reversed with directions to enter summary judgment for Cobb (pp. 620–630).

Current relevance and limits

The opinion expressly maps former Rev. & Tax. Code §§ 2914, 2916 and 2918 to current §§ 2951, 2957 and 2960. Their current bodies were independently retrieved from the official legislative bulk export. Bare statutory auction/publication language is not a substitute for the constitutional hearing requirement. The opinion’s prior-interest analysis refutes a universal clean-title promise from § 2960’s vesting language.

This is not a holding that all personal-property taxes are unenforceable, that all state tax liens are junior, or that an actual county-auction purchaser obtained lien-free title. The tax collection routes and lien dates still matter. No comprehensive subsequent-history/citator certification is claimed.

Source scope

The complete published opinion, including footnotes, was retrieved on 2026-10-17 from the frontmatter URL. Caselaw Access Project is an unofficial reproduction of court-decision text, not a court-hosted source. Review record: schema/verification/california-independent-review-2026-10-17.md.

Applies in →

california · court-ordered-administrative-and-creditor-sales · equipment-and-machinery

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Legal information, not legal advice. Verify current authority and consult a licensed California attorney before acting.