Albuquerque, City Of, v. Huddleston, 5320

• Decision Date: 21 April 1951
• Docket Number: No. 5320,5320
• Citation: 55 N.M. 240,1951 NMSC 32,230 P.2d 972
• Parties: CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE v. HUDDLESTON et ux.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 972

230 P.2d 972

55 N.M. 240

CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE v. HUDDLESTON et ux.

No. 5320.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

April 21, 1951.

Rehearing Denied May 24, 1951.

Merritt W. Oldaker, Albuquerque, for appellants.

Waldo H. Rogers, City Atty., C. Vance Mauney, Asst. City Atty., Albuquerque, for appellee.

McGHEE, Justice.

The appellants seek the reversal of a judgment quieting title in the appellee to two lots in Albuquerque purchased by it at a sale following the foreclosure of paving liens. A number of lots in various ownerships were involved in the foreclosure suit, and some of the defendants, including the predecessor in title of the appellants, pleaded the statute of limitations at to lots owned by them, and had the suit dismissed as to their property on account of such pleas. The appellant, Oscar L. Huddleston, however, suffered default and allowed his lots to be sold to the city.

The trial court sustained a motion for summary judgment filed by the city upon the following findings of fact:

'1. On March 8, 1940, the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a Muncipal Corporation, in Cause No. 27,113, District Court, Bernalillo County, filed a suit against several defendants to foreclose a number of paving liens which it held against various tracts of land in Albuquerque.

'2. Among the tracts involved were Lots 6 and 7, in Block 11, of the Granda Heights Addition to the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the same are shown and designated on the replat of Blocks 10, 11, 18 and Plaza Del Sol filed in the office of the County Clerk of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, December 15, 1927. The complaint in Cause No. 27, 113 alleged that Katherine B. Patterson, William O. Heacock and O. L. Huddleston, who were named therein as defendants, claimed some interest in the lots.

'3. At the time the paving lien involved was filed against the lots they were owned by Katherine B. Patterson. Later they were conveyed to William O. Heacock, who conveyed them to O. L. Huddleston on December 3, 1938.

'4. At the time Cause No. 27,113 was filed, the lots were the community property of the defendants in this case, Oscar L. Huddleston and Dora A. Huddleston, his wife.

'5. O. L. Huddleston (same as Oscar L. Huddleston) was duly served with the Summons and Complaint in Cause No. 27,113, but failed to answer or otherwise plead and, as a result, a judgment was entered against him foreclosing the paying lien on the lots, and, thereafter, a sale was held and the lots were conveyed by a Special Master on May 8, 1944.

'6. Some of the defendants in Cause No. 27,113, including Katherine B. Patterson, filed answers pleading, among other things, that the debts upon which the liens were based were barred by the Statute of Limitations, and were successful in having the case dismissed as to them.'

The contentions of the appellants here are well summarized in conclusions of law 2, 3 and 4 made by the trial court which are as follows:

'The Huddlestons contend in this case:

* * *

* * *

'2. That the judgment is void because the plaintiff's cause of action in Cause No. 27,113 was barred by the Statute of Limitations at the time the complaint was filed. the Statute of Limitations does not discharge the debt, but it merely bars the remedy, and in New Mexico the bar of the Statute of Limitations is available only to those who plead it as an affirmative defense. In this case no pleading of any kind was filed by Huddleston in Cause No. 27,113.

'3. That the judgment is void because the action of some of the defendants in Cause No. 27,113, including Katherine B. Patterson, in pleading the Statute of Limitations injured to the benefit of all the other defendants. This contention has no merit because, in my opinion, it was necessary, under our Rules, that each defendant plead the Statute of Limitations in order to be entitled to that defense. It was a personal defense that was available to each defendant, including the Huddlestons, but it had to be asserted by them in that case. The other defendants were merely defending on a ground personal to themselves, and the defense of the Statute of Limitations made by them did not inure to the benefit of the Huddlestons, or to any of the other defendants.

'4. That the defendants have acquired the lots in question by adverse possession because they have held them under color of title and paid the taxes for more than ten years. The color of title relied upon by the defendants to sustain their claim of title to the lots by adverse possession under the ten year statute was extinguished by the judgment or decree entered against them in Cause No. 27,113.'

The trial court also concluded that the Huddlestons were making an improper collateral attack on the judgment in the foreclosure case.

The appellants say that under our decisions in Altman v. Kilburn, 45 N.M. 453, 116 P.2d 812, 136 A.L.R. 554, and Munro v. City of Albuquerque, 48 N.M. 306, 150 P.2d 733, the district court did not have jurisdiction of the subject matter in Cause 27,113, as more than four years had elapsed since they became delinquent in the payment of the paving assessments.

The Altman case was an action to foreclose a paving lien in which the defendants had been delinquent in their payments for more than four years. The...