Baca v. Anaya
| Decision Date | 25 January 1908 |
| Citation | 94 P. 1017,14 N.M. 382,1908 -NMSC- 009 |
| Parties | BACA et al. (DE OTERO, Intervener) v. ANAYA et al. |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
Under Comp. Laws 1897, § 3182, providing that during the pendency of any partition suit any person claiming to be interested in the premises may appear and assert his right by interpleader the right to intervene is given to all persons claiming an interest in the land, whether under the common title sought to be partitioned or by title independent thereof.
[Ed Note.-For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 38, Partition § 130.]
Parties in possession of land claiming it under a Spanish grant made in 1760 were thus entitled to intervene to quiet their title in a partition suit affecting the same land pending between co-tenants under a Spanish grant made in 1800.
Under the Code system merging courts of law and equity, the determination of issues of title arising in a partition suit does not necessitate additional and separate suits, but such issues may all be determined in the same partition action.
[Ed Note.-For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 38, Partition, § 209.]
The right to intervene given by Comp. Laws 1897, § 3182, to one claiming an interest in the land, is insured by statute, and the court has, when such right is seasonably asserted, no discretion to deny it.
[Ed. Note.-For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 38, Partition, § 130.]
Appeal from District Court, Bernalillo County; before Justice Benjamin S. Baker.
Action by Roman L. Baca and others against Santiago Anaya and others, and Filomena Perea de Otero intervenes. From the judgment, intervener appeals. Reversed and remanded.
See 89 P. 314.
Baca and 80 others, claiming to own undivided interests in the Cebolleta grant, brought suit in partition against Anaya and some 400 others alleged to be the remaining co-tenants. In their petition plaintiffs allege that their grant was made in 1800, and contains by official survey 199,567 acres. The defendants are all mentioned by name, and there is no suit against unknown owners. Otero, not being among those sued, presented, pending the making of the issues and before the proofs, an intervening petition, alleging ownership of 8,012.05 acres contained in the overlap of his survey upon the Cebolleta grant; his title being asserted under the Antonio Baca grant alleged to have been made in 1760. The petition further asserts immemorial possession of the above-named area, and, alleging an adverse claim thereto by the Cebolleta co-tenants, prays a quieting of intervener's title as against such claim. No leave to file this petition was given, but a subsequent order allowing a substitution of its parties indicates that it was considered as regularly filed. Later a motion to dismiss the intervention was made upon the grounds that the intervener was not a tenant in common, but, on the contrary, was claiming adversely to all the tenants in common, because the rights of the intervener would not be affected by the judgment between the original parties, and because upon the claim set up in the intervening petition claimants would be entitled to trial by jury. The court sustained this motion upon the ground that it was "without jurisdiction to entertain the petition," and dismissed the intervention without prejudice to the right of petitioner to assert his rights "in any other proceedings or in any other way as he may be advised." The cause thereupon proceeded to final decree between the original parties, and the intervener appealed both from this latter decree and from the decree dismissing the intervention. Some difficulty was encountered by intervener in securing service of citation upon this appeal, but this subject was by this court disposed of favorably to intervener in Baca v. Anaya (N. M.) 89 P. 314, and the case is now before the court upon its merits.
Catron & Gortner, for appellant.
A. B. McMillen, H. F. Raynolds, F. W. Clancy, and L. B. Prince, for appellees.
Did the trial court err in dismissing the intervention? This must be determined primarily by the terms of our partition statute. This latter provides (Comp. Laws 1897, § 3179) that "when any lands, tenements or hereditaments shall be owned in joint tenancy, tenancy in common or coparcenary, whether the right or title be derived by donation, grant, purchase, devise or descent, it shall be lawful for any one or more of the persons interested, whether they be in possession or not, to present their petition in chancery praying for a division and partition of such premises according to the respective rights of the parties interested therein." Section 3180 provides that "every person having an interest in the premises, whether having possession or otherwise, shall be made a party to such petition, and in cases where one or more of such parties shall be unknown or the share or quantity of interest of any of the parties is unknown to the petitioner or when such share or interest shall be uncertain or contingent or when there may be any other impediment so that such parties cannot be named, the same shall be so stated in the petition." By section 3181 it is provided that "all persons interested in the premises of which partition is sought to be made, whose names are unknown, may be made parties to such partition by the name and description of unknown owners or proprietors of the premises or as unknown heirs of any person who may have been interested in the same." Section 3182, which is the provision especially relevant here, provides that during the pendency of any such suit or proceeding "any person claiming to be interested in the premises may appear and answer the petition and assert his right by way of interpleader, and the court shall decide upon their rights as though they had been made parties in the first instance." There is a further provision (section 3183) that the court "shall ascertain and declare the rights, titles, and interests of all the parties to such proceedings and render such decree as may be required by the rights of the parties, which said decree shall be binding upon all of the said parties, whether they be adults or not." It will be noted from section 3182 that the right to intervene is in terms given to "any person claiming to be interested in the premises." This language is plain, and prima facie needs no construction. It means any one claiming a right in the land. Appellees contend that it means a right in the land under the common title; but the statute does not so state, as it might easily have done. It says "interested in the premises." Some light is thrown upon the meaning of these terms by comparison with other statutes cited by appellees under which interventions were not permitted. In Porter v. Garrissino, 51 Cal. 560, the statutory language is, "Interested in the matter in litigation." In Bacon v. Boyd (Ky.) 34 S.W. 525, the statute gave the right to those claiming "an interest in the controversy adverse to the plaintiff." In the numerous Louisiana cases cited by appellees the statutory wording permits to intervene "persons whose interests may be affected by a suit pending between other parties." In Myers & Sons Co. v. Black, 4 N. M. 352, 16 P. 620, this court was construing our general intervention statute (Comp. Laws 1897, §§ 2947-2949), which gives the right to intervene to those having "an interest in the matter in litigation, in the success of either of the parties to the action or against both." In Smith v. Gale, 144 U.S. 509, 517, 12 S.Ct. 674, 679, 36 L.Ed. 521, the Supreme Court was dealing with a Dakota statute in terms practically the same as our Comp. Laws 1897, §§ 2947-2949, just quoted. In Dial v. Reynolds, 96 U.S. 340, 24 L.Ed. 644, and Peters v. Bowman, 98 U.S. 60, 25 L.Ed. 91, the propriety of the presence of certain parties was tested by the general equity rule, which, as pointed out in Flournoy v. Bullock, 11 N.M. 103, 66 P. 547, 55 L. R. A. 745, permits to intervene only such as have an interest in the object of the suit. Our section 3183, however, is broader than any one of the statutes above referred to, and it enlarges the grounds upon which equity admits parties. It makes an interest not in "the title" nor "in the controversy," but in the land, the jurisdictional Shibboleth. We are of opinion, therefore, that at least upon the face of the statute the intervener was entitled to become a party.
It is very strongly urged, however, that the statute should not be interpreted as just indicated, for the reason that to permit persons to intervene who hold adversely to all parties to the action will be to permit a partition suit to be burdened, at the instance of a person not affected by it, with innumerable collateral controversies, to the great annoyance and expense of the original litigants, that such a system will be contrary to the ancient practice in partition suits, and to all traditional theories upon which partition suits proceed, and that, since collateral inquiries will often involve questions properly determinable at law, such a construction will tend to a denial of the constitutional right of trial by jury. We have given these objections the full consideration which their great practical importance demands.
The first is an argument rather of convenience, and, of course cannot prevail against the terms of the statute. But even upon such a ground we deem it untenable. An intervention claiming an ownership in the land paramount and adverse to the several alleged co-tenants presents a controversy that must be settled somewhere and at some time. If not in the original case, then in another. We are unable to see the hardship of a system which necessitates the settlement of all questions affecting a given piece of land in one...
To continue reading
Request your trial