Hafner v. City of St. Louis

• Citation: 61 S.W. 632,161 Mo. 34
• Parties: HAFNER et al. v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS.
• Decision Date: 12 March 1901
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

61 S.W. 632

161 Mo. 34

HAFNER et al. v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 12, 1901.

CITIES — POWER TO ACQUIRE REAL ESTATE — QUITCLAIM — EQUITABLE AND LEGAL TITLE.

1. Under the general power given a city by Rev. St. 1845, c. 34, § 1, to hold, purchase, and convey such real estate as its purposes shall require, it may, where necessary, acquire land outside its limits for wharf purposes, though its charter, reciting that it may purchase, receive, and hold real estate outside the city for certain purposes, does not mention wharf purposes.

2. Neither a grantor of land to a city, nor those claiming under him, but only the state, can question its power to acquire and hold the land.

3. Where land is conveyed to persons to hold in trust for the sale, use, and benefit of W., and to manage and dispose of it as W. may direct, and W. and her husband quitclaim it to a city, the legal title subsequently acquired by the trustees, conveying it to her, inures to the benefit of the city.

Appeal from St. Louis circuit court; Selden P. Spencer, Judge.

Suit by Julia A. Hafner and others against the city of St. Louis. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

E. P. Johnson and H. M. Pollard, for appellants. B. Schnurmacher and Chas. C. Allen, for respondent.

ROBINSON, J.

This is a suit in ejectment for the possession of a piece of land in the city of St. Louis bounded on the north by the south line of Dock street extended to the Mississippi river; on the west by the eastern line of city block No. 661E of said city, which latter line is the same as a proposed western wharf line under City Ordinance No. 5403; on the south by a line parallel with and 164 feet south of said south line of Dock street so extended; and on the east by said river, — being the eastern portion of lots 298 and 299 of North St. Louis. The suit, as originally instituted, was against the city of St. Louis, the St. Louis, Keokuk & Northwestern Railroad Company (which, under an ordinance of the city, had a right of way across the property in controversy, and over which at the time it was operating a railroad), and Justin E. Joy, a lessee of the city, occupying that part of the property not occupied by the railroad company. The defendants other than the city of St. Louis answered separately by general denial, and the city answered separately — First, by general denial; second, that plaintiffs, and those under whom they claim, had not been seised or possessed of the premises within 10 years before the commencement of the action; third, that defendant had been in the continuous adverse possession of them for more than 10 years before the action was commenced; fourth, that pursuant to Ordinance No. 2932 of said city, for locating and establishing a wharf north of Cherry street in said city, and for other purposes, Thomas H. West and many others, among them William H. Glasgow, Mary F. Glasgow, and Thomas A. Wright, the parties under whom the plaintiffs claim title to said premises in this suit, joined in a deed, whereby each for himself forever released and confirmed unto the city of St. Louis his right, title, interest, and claim of every description whatever in and to the premises sued for, which deed is known as the "Wharf Deed of 1853"; fifth, a plea that all questions relating to the terms, conditions, and effect of said deed have been adjudicated in the case of City of St. Louis v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 88 Mo. 615, and that by said decision the status of said deed, and the title of the city to the property thereby conveyed, had become settled and was binding upon plaintiffs; sixth, a plea that, after the execution of the wharf deed of 1853, the city of St. Louis passed numerous ordinances for the improvement of the wharf established by Ordinance 2932, appropriating large sums of money therefor, and that over $300,000 was expended in the construction and building of dykes and revetments, and over $35,000 in the improvement of the wharf across the very property in dispute, and that said work was done between the year 1853 and prior to the institution of this suit, during all of which time plaintiffs and their predecessors in the title knew that the city was making these improvements and expenditures, never objected thereto, but on the contrary acquiesced therein, and accepted the benefits of the work done and the money thus expended in improving their property so fronting upon the wharf, and that neither the plaintiffs nor their said predecessors attempted, prior to the institution of this suit, to exercise any power or authority over the property in dispute, but permitted the city to do said work and to deal with said property as with the remainder of its unpaved wharf, and that they recognized same as a wharf by deeds and by other acts in relation thereto, — all of which acts are pleaded as an estoppel. To these answers plaintiffs replied by a general denial, and the case proceeded to trial by the court without the intervention of a jury, during the progress of which plaintiffs dismissed as to the defendant the St. Louis, Keokuk & Northwestern Railroad Company. The court found in favor of the remaining defendants, and against plaintiffs, and plaintiffs have brought the case here on appeal, after the usual steps taken to that end.

Since this case was heard in the circuit court, the case of Sweringen v. City of St. Louis, 151 Mo. 348, 52 S. W. 346, passed upon by the other division of this court, has practically determined the question of plaintiffs' paper title to the property. That was a suit in ejectment for a strip of land just 60 feet north of Dock street, in the city of St. Louis, whereas the property involved in this suit is immediately next to and south of said Dock street, both tracts being part of the accretion made to the east of the east boundary line of the Labeaume patent; and the plaintiffs here, as in that case, to sustain their paper title, were required to show that the land embraced in the Labeaume patent (under which these plaintiffs and the plaintiff in that case claimed) was riparian property. In this case, as in that, it was not claimed that the land in controversy was embraced within the actual calls of the Labeaume patent, but that it is part of an accretion formed to said land, more than a thousand feet east of what was the west bank of the Mississippi river at the time of the concession and patent of the main land acquired by plaintiffs in each case through mesne conveyance from the original patentee, Labeaume. The facts of this case, and the facts of the Sweringen Case, in so far as concerns the question of paper title, are identical, each depending upon the effect given to the eastern boundary line of the Labeaume grant. If the river is not the eastern boundary line of the Labeaume grant, then the paper title of plaintiffs in this case, as in that, must of necessity fall, and, if plaintiffs are to recover at all in this action, it must be upon their further claim of title by adverse possession.

On the question as to the eastern boundary of the Labeaume grant, the court in the Sweringen Case, speaking through Gantt, P. J., said: "Now, in the patent to Labeaume the river is not mentioned as a boundary. On the contrary, the eastern boundary is a permanent line, fixed by courses and distances, metes and monuments, `between high and low water mark,' and the accompanying survey exhibits a tract of 14 acres or more between the eastern boundary of the survey and the river itself." And again: "The tract in this case was confirmed, not...