Sebree v. Patterson

• Decision Date: 20 June 1887
• Parties: SEBREE and others v. PATTERSON and others.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

5 S.W. 31

92 Mo. 451

SEBREE and others v. PATTERSON and others.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

June 20, 1887.

1. LIMITATION OF ACTIONS — ESTOPPEL.

Defendant in ejectment pleaded in his answer certain conduct of plaintiff's ancestor constituting an equitable estoppel against the maintenance of the action by such ancestor, or those in privity with him. To this defense plaintiff pleaded that the matters out of which the alleged estoppel arose occurred more than 20 years ago, and that the defense was barred by the statute of limitations. Held, that the matters set up in defense did not constitute a "cause of action" within the meaning of the general statutes of limitation, and were not barred thereby.

2. APPEAL — HARMLESS ERROR.

Where an equitable estoppel constitutes a good defense to a suit independent of certain testimony objected to, its admission is harmless error.

Appeal from circuit court, Daviess county.

Rush & Alexander, for appellants. Shanklin, Low & McDougal, for respondents.

RAY, J.

This was an action of ejectment in the Daviess circuit court for the undivided one-half of the E. ½ of N. E. ¼ of section 19, township 59, range 26, in said county. The petition is in the usual form, and was filed April 7, 1881, by Robert H. N. Sanders as plaintiff, and against said Patterson as defendant. At the ensuing June term of said court, Levi Murray and Sidney Shackelford, on their motion, were made parties defendant, and the cause ordered to proceed against all three. In January afterwards the defendants filed their answer, which is to the effect following: (1) A general denial; (2) an equitable title in defendant Patterson to the land in controversy, and then set up as a defense to said action in the language following: "Defendants further answer, and for further defense state that plaintiffs ought not to be permitted to say that on the eleventh day of March, 1885, he was entitled to the possession of the premises sued for, and that the defendant Patterson entered into said premises, and unlawfully withholds from the plaintiff the possession thereof to his damage, etc., because these defendants say that in the year 1839 the land described in the petition was entered by the plaintiff and one James E. Bouldin, and that they, at about the same time, entered a large amount of other lands in various parts of this state, all of which was paid for with the money of said Bouldin; that, long after the entry of said land, to-wit, in the years A. D. 1841 and 1842, the plaintiff sold all his interest in all of said lands to said James E. Bouldin; that, by mistake of the scrivener, the numbers of said lands in controversy were omitted from said deeds then made by plaintiff to said Bouldin for his interest in all of said lands; and that it was then and there intended by both the plaintiff and said Bouldin that the deeds then made should convey to said Bouldin all his interest in all of the lands so entered by and in the name of both plaintiff and said Bouldin; that thereafter, to-wit, on the thirteenth day of October, 1869, said Bouldin sold and conveyed the lands in controversy, with other lands, to the defendant Shackelford; that on the twentieth day of December, 1872, said Shackelford sold, and conveyed by general warranty deed, the lands in controversy to defendant Levi Murray, who thereafter, and long prior to the fourth day of March, 1877, sold and conveyed the same by general warranty deed to the defendant Patterson; * * * that the defendant Patterson is in the lawful possession of the land described in plaintiff's petition, claiming the fee-simple title thereto under good and sufficient deeds of conveyance thereof." The answer further contained a certain "matter in estoppel" growing out of a conversation between the original plaintiff, Sanders, and the defendant, Murray, just prior to the purchase, by the latter from defendant, Shackelford, of the land in controversy, in which Sanders disclaimed all right or title to the land in controversy, and upon the faith of which that purchase and the subsequent sale to defendant Patterson were made. (3) The answer also set up the 10-year statute of limitation.

After the filing of said answer, the death of Sanders, the original plaintiff, was suggested, and the cause revived in the name of Mary V. Sebree and her husband, Urial Sebree, and Jennie Brown and her husband, George E. Brown, who thereafter filed their reply to said answer, consisting of three branches; the first of which is a special denial of the new matter set up in the second branch of the answer; the second is in the nature of the 20-year statute of limitation, and is in the following language: "Plaintiffs, by way of further reply, say that defendants ought not to be permitted to say that in the year 1841 or 2, or at any other time prior thereto, plaintiff's ancestor, the said Robert H. N. Sanders, sold all his interest in said real estate to said Bouldin, or that by mistake of the scrivener the numbers of the land were omitted from the deeds mentioned in defendants' answer then made by said Sanders to said Bouldin, or that it was then and there intended by said Sanders and Bouldin that the deeds should convey all the interest of said Sanders in said real estate; for that plaintiffs say that defendants', and their grantor James E. Bouldin's, cause of action, if any they had on that behalf, accrued more than 20 years prior to the beginning of this suit, and plaintiffs plead said...