Barton v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 22 January 1886
• Citation: 4 N.E. 420,104 Ind. 578
• Parties: Barton v. Anderson and others.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

104 Ind. 578

4 N.E. 420

Barton

v.Anderson and others.¹

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Filed January 22, 1886.

Appeal from Marion superior court.

James Buchanan and G. B. Manlove, for appellant.

Claypool & Ketcham and J. T. Lecklider, for appellee.

NIBLACK, C. J.

Complaint by Henry P. Barton against William C. Anderson, Daniel W. Grubbs, William Rowe, Henry G. Hannaman, Frederick A. W. Davis, and others, constituting the Indiana Banking Company, and several other persons, to have his title quieted to a particularly described lot or piece of ground known as the “south-west part of outlot sixty-six, (66,) in the city of Indianapolis, fronting on the north side of Washington street one hundred and twenty (120) feet, and running north to Pogue's creek.” Grubbs answered, disclaiming any interest in the land described in the complaint, and averring that, before the commencement of the action, he had conveyed and transferred to the Indiana Banking Company all his interest in and claim to such land. Anderson, Rowe, Hannaman, and the Indiana Banking Company answered separately in denial. Each also filed a cross-complaint, asserting a lien upon the land under a tax deed executed upon and in pursuance of a sale for delinquent taxes charged against it; the deed in each case being based upon a sale different from those described in the other cross-complaints respectively. Issues being also formed upon the cross-complaint, the court, trying the cause at special term, found that the plaintiff was the owner in fee-simple of the land in controversy, but that he held the same subject to the liens respectively asserted and set up by the cross-complainants; finding also the amount due to each cross-complainant. A motion for a new trial being first thereafter denied, judgment was entered in accordance with the findings of the court, to which was added an order that, unless the plaintiffs should within 60 days therefrom pay the several sums respectively adjudged to be due to the cross-complainants, and to be liens upon the land, such land should be sold to pay and discharge such liens, and this judgment was affirmed at general term.

It was made to appear by the evidence that on the twenty-seventh day of September, 1873, Nicholas R. Ruckle and Frederick Knefler mortgaged the land in judgment in this case to John C. Tracy and Samuel Bingham, in trust, for the purpose of securing a loan to them of money; that on the fifth day of August, 1876, Tracy and Bingham commenced a suit in chancery, in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Indiana, against Ruckle and Knefler to foreclose this mortgage; that Grubbs, hereinabove named, and many other persons, were made defendants to that proceeding, and required to answer the bill therein filed, upon the alleged ground that they either had or claimed to have some lien upon or interest in the mortgaged premises junior and subordinate to the mortgage then sought to be foreclosed; that said suit was continued until the twenty-eighth day of March, 1877, when Grubbs, upon whom process had been served on the eleventh day of August, 1876, and most of the other defendants, on being called, made default, and a decree of foreclosure was entered, including the usual order barring and foreclosing the equity of redemption of all the defendants; that Barton, the plaintiff herein, became the purchaser under that decree of foreclosure, and was in possession under his purchase when he commenced this action. It was further made to appear by the evidence that, at a sale of lands for delinquent taxes due the city of Indianapolis, held on the fourteenth day of February, 1877, Grubbs became the purchaser of the land embraced in the then pending foreclosure proceedings in the circuit court of the United States, as well as the complaint in this case, and that he, on the seventeenth day of February, 1879, received a tax deed for the land in question from the mayor and treasurer of said city of Indianapolis; that on the tenth day of April, 1879, the said Grubbs transferred and conveyed to the Indiana Banking Company all his estate and interest in the land, and that the estate and interest thus transferred and conveyed by Grubbs constituted the basis of the lien asserted and set up by the banking company against the land under its cross-complaint. The point was made at the trial, and is still insisted upon here, that by his default in the circuit court of the United States, and his failure to set up his tax claim when the decree of foreclosure was taken in that court, Grubbs became estopped from thereafter asserting any title to or interest in the land under his purchase at the tax sale, and that consequently the banking company acquired no estate or interest in the land by the transfer and conveyance which he assumed to make to it.

A judgment by default is as conclusive upon the judgment defendant, as to any matter admitted by the default and adjudicated by the judgment which ensued, as any other form of...