Boynton v. Haggart

• Citation: 120 F. 819
• Decision Date: 16 February 1903
• Docket Number: 1,770.,1,679
• Parties: BOYNTON et al. v. HAGGART et al. ROZELL et al. v. BOYNTON et al.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

120 F. 819

BOYNTON et al. v. HAGGART et al.

ROZELL et al. v. BOYNTON et al.

Nos. 1,679, 1,770.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 16, 1903

Syllabus by the Court.

Registry statutes are legislative extensions of the doctrine of estoppel. Their purpose and effect are to estop the holder of the actual title, evidenced by an unrecorded deed or decree from denying that the title which appears of record is the real title.

An innocent purchaser for value of the lands owned by his grantor in a certain state, without more definite description, may avail himself of a registry statute to estop the holders of the real title under a prior unrecorded decree or deed from asserting it against his claim to all the lands which his grantor appeared by the records to own when he made his purchase.

One of the statutes of Arkansas provides that, if a decree affecting the title to real estate is not registered in the recorder's office of the proper county within one year of its rendition, it shall be void as to all subsequent purchasers without notice. Held, the title of an innocent purchaser of land from the defendant in a decree that appeared by the record to be the owner thereof more than a year after the decree was rendered, and before it was recorded, is superior to the title of those in whose favor the decree was rendered, notwithstanding the fact that the deed to the purchaser contained no detailed description of the land, but conveyed the right, title, and interest of the grantor in all the lands it owned in certain counties in the state of Arkansas.

A subsequent purchaser of lands conveyed to him by a warranty deed is not charged with notice under the registry statutes of unrecorded conveyances or decrees by the fact that some prior deed in the chain of title is a quitclaim deed or conveys only the lands which the grantor therein owned, or those which some bankrupt owned at the time of his adjudication, or those of which some apparent owner died seised. But the purchaser may safely rely upon the presumption that the record title is the real title.

The fact that the purchaser takes his deed from his agent in the purchase, who obtained his title by a prior quitclaim deed from the vendor of the lands he owned in a certain county or state, does not deprive the purchaser of the benefit of this rule.

The record of a deed neither the grantors nor grantees of which appear in the recorded chain of title is no notice to a subsequent purchaser of any right or interest of any of the parties to such a deed in the land it describes.

The Auditor and Governor of the state of Arkansas constitute a quasi judicial tribunal empowered to hear and determine who are entitled to the swamp lands granted to that state by the act of Congress of September 28, 1850 (9 Stat. 519), and to execute their judgments by issuing patents or deeds of the state to the parties that they find entitled to them.

The patent of the state to such lands is impervious to collateral attack, and conclusive evidence of title, except in a direct proceeding in equity to avoid it for fraud or gross mistake.

An estoppel by the subsequent judgment of a competent tribunal prevails over a prior estoppel by the covenants of a deed.

Under ordinary circumstances a suit in equity will not be stayed for laches before, and will be stayed after, the time fixed for the commencement of the analogous action at law.

When a suit is brought within the time fixed by the analogous statute, the burden is on the defendant to show, either from the face of the bill or by the answer, that circumstances exist which require the application of the doctrine of laches.

When the suit in equity is brought after the analogous statutory time, the burden is on the complainant to plead in his bill and to establish by proof the existence of unusual facts and circumstances which make it inequitable to apply the doctrine of laches to his case.

The causes of action in equity to avoid a patent accrued 32 years before the interveners sought relief. The analogous limitation at law was five years. The interveners neither pleaded nor proved any excuse for the delay, and an innocent purchaser had bought the land in reliance upon the patent.

Held the interveners were estopped from securing relief in equity by their laches.

Charles T. Coleman (W. J. Driver and John M. Rose, on the brief), for appellants Lucetta B. Boynton and others.

S. S. Semmes and Allen Hughes, for appellants L. D. Rozell and others.

N.W. Norton, for appellees James Haggart and others.

Before CALDWELL, SANBORN, and THAYER, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

These appeals present controversies between three sets of claimants to the title to certain timber lands in the state of Arkansas. Lucetta B. Boynton and her associates, the complainants below, are the devisees under the will of C. O. Boynton, deceased, who brought this suit against James Haggart and William McMasters, hereafter called the 'defendants,' to quiet in himself the title to about 20,000 acres of land which he bought of the Citizens' Bank of Louisiana in the year 1883. L. D. Rozell and his associates, the heirs of A. B. Rozell, deceased, intervened in this suit, and claimed the title to a portion of these lands. There was a hearing and a decree for the defendants, which the complainants and the interveners challenge by separate appeals.

The principal question which the appeal of the complainants presents is whether or not an innocent purchaser under a deed of all the right, title, and interest in the lands owned by his grantor in a certain state, without a more definite description, may successfully hold the lands which his grantor appeared by the registry to own when he made this deed as against a claimant under a prior unrecorded conveyance of the same lands by the same grantor. The question arises in this way: From 1873 until October 26, 1883, the records of the counties in which these lands were situated disclosed a complete chain of title to them from D. C. Cross, the grantee of the state of Arkansas, to the Citizens' Bank of Louisiana. On May 3, 1880, however, a decree had been rendered in one of the courts of the state of Arkansas in a suit between the executor, the executrix, and the devisees of the will of Jeptha Fowlkes, complainants, and the Citizens' Bank of Louisiana, defendant, to the effect that the heirs of Jeptha Fowlkes were the owners of this land, and that the bank had no title or interest in it. One of the statutes of the state of Arkansas required those in whose favor such a decree was rendered to register it in the recorder's office of the county in which the lands it affected were situated within one year after its rendition, and provided that, 'if such decree be not recorded within such time, it shall be void as to all subsequent purchasers without notice. ' Gould's Digest of the Laws of Arkansas, p. 637, Sec. 35. This decree was not recorded until November 4, 1884. Meanwhile, and in the year 1883, W. L. Culbertson, the agent and associate of C. O. Boynton, without any notice of this decree, purchased the lands in controversy in this suit from the Citizens' Bank of Louisiana, paid that bank $13,000 therefor, and took and recorded a quitclaim deed from it to himself of 'all and singular its right, title, interest, and claim of whatever nature, legal and equitable, in and to all the lands, lots, and parcels of land and any and all interests in the same belonging to and owned by said Citizens' Bank of Louisiana, in the state of Arkansas, at the date of this conveyance (except its lands and interests in Chicot county in said state); the said lands and interests herein conveyed being situated and lying within the counties of Clay, Crittenden, Craighead, Cross, Greene, Mississippi, Poinsett, and Woodruff, in the said state of Arkansas; and this conveyance to operate and be as absolute full and complete as if the said lands and interests aforesaid were herein specifically described. ' Before making this purchase, Culbertson procured a list of these lands, and an abstract of the recorded title to them, from which it appeared that the bank had a perfect record title to them, subject only to a tax title, which Culbertson bought at the same time that he purchased the lands from the bank. He secured his deed from the bank on September 26, 1883, and recorded it on October 26, 1883. C. O. Boynton, his principal, furnished the money to make this purchase, and on October 23, 1883, Culbertson conveyed the lands in controversy in this suit to Boynton by means of a warranty deed which describes them by government subdivisions, and this deed was recorded on October 29, 1883. Culbertson appears to have been interested with Boynton in the purchase of the lands, but what his interest was does not appear. The title of the complainants rests upon the purchase from the bank and the conveyance to Boynton while he was ignorant of the existence of the decree. The defendants have succeeded to the title of the heirs of Fowlkes under their decree against the bank of May 3, 1880, and the question is whether that title or that of the devisees of Boynton should prevail.

Counsel for the defendants argue that the deed from the bank to Culbertson conveyed only the lands which the bank owned at the date of the deed, and that, as the title to the lands here in question had been devested from the bank before the deed to Culbertson was made by the decree of May 3, 1880, and as the bank did not in fact own any right, title, or interest in the lands when it made this deed, the deed conveyed nothing, and the purchasers took nothing thereby. In support of this contention they cite Brown v. Jackson, 3 Wheat, 449, 4 L.Ed. 432. That was the first of a long...