Cravens v. Gordon

• Decision Date: 31 August 1873
• Parties: JAMES L. CRAVENS and WM. T. CHRISTIE, Respondents, v. W. T. GORDON, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

53 Mo. 287

JAMES L. CRAVENS and WM. T. CHRISTIE, Respondents,

v.W. T. GORDON, Appellant.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

August Term, 1873.

Appeal from Clay Circuit Court.

Merryman & Paxton, for Appellant.

I. When the substituted purchaser obtains the sheriff's deed, he is invested with all the rights, remedies and interests of the party in whose stead he is substituted. (Wimer vs. Obear, 23 Mo., 242; 1 Littell, 17; 1 Wend., 46.)

II. If appellant had not made any disposition of his purchase, and had received the deed from the sheriff without any examination of the title, and the money had been paid to the plaintiff in the execution, he could not recover it from the sheriff, nor from any other person. So with respondents; they cannot recover from Gordon, if he is without remedy. Courts will not permit vendors to recover the purchase money, unless the vendee can be placed in statu quo. (Adams Eq., 392; note.)

III. The defendant in the execution, as he has received the benefit of the sale, is bound in equity to make good the mistake. (McLean vs. Martin, 45 Mo., 393.)

J. W. Jenkins, for Respondents.

I. The doctrine that money paid under a mutual mistake may be recovered back is well established. (McLean vs. Martin, 45 Mo., 393; Bank of Commerce vs. Union Bank, 3 N. Y., 230; Wheaton vs. Olds, 20 Wen., 175.)

ADAMS, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an action to recover back the purchase money alleged to have been paid by the plaintiff to the defendant for a tract of land. The facts as they appear by the record, are substantially as follows:

The sheriff of Clay county sold under execution certain lands of J. T. V. Thompson. The defendant at this sale bid off one of the tracts at the price of $840.00. It was declared from the stand when the sheriff was selling the land, that this tract was “the stone house tract,” and the defendant seems to have believed that it was that tract, and after his purchase and before the sheriffs' deed was made, the plaintiff, Cravens, applied to the defendant, Gordon, for the land, and the defendant asked him $40 over his bid, and Cravens agreed to take the land at that price, and paid the defendant $780.00 and then directed the sheriff to return Cravens and the plaintiff, Christie, as the purchasers at sheriff's sale instead of the defendant, and to make them the deed. The sheriff accordingly made plaintiff a deed to the tract of land bid off.

All parties thought it was the “stone house” tract, and the substitution of the plaintiffs as purchasers was made in good faith, and under the belief that it was the “stone house” tract. It turned out, however, that this was a mistake, and that the land sold and bid off, and which was afterwards conveyed by the sheriff's deed to the plaintiff, was not the “stone house” tract, but was a tract of land which at that time belonged to the plaintiff, Cravens,...