Brooks v. Mohl
| Decision Date | 12 June 1908 |
| Docket Number | 15,584 - (37) |
| Citation | 116 N.W. 931,104 Minn. 404 |
| Parties | SUSAN E. BROOKS and Others v. FRED MOHL and Another |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Nobles county to recover $2,429.80 for breach of covenant contained in a certain deed. The case was tried before P. E. Brown, J., who made findings and ordered judgment in favor of plaintiffs for the sum of $1,008.40. From the judgment entered pursuant to the order defendants appealed. Affirmed.
Deed -- Breach of Covenant.
If, at the date of the execution of a warranty deed, a superior title is outstanding in a third person, the covenants of that deed are broken whenever that title is actually asserted against the covenantee, the premises are claimed under it and the covenantee is compelled to yield and does yield his claim to the superior title.
Deed -- Statute of Limitations.
The vendee's right of action against the warrantor does not date from the time when the deed was delivered, so as to be barred by the statute of limitations at the end of six years thereafter.
Merger of Title.
The vendee in such a case may extinguish the paramount title by purchase.
Measure of Damages.
The ordinary measure of damages on breach of the covenants of a warranty deed is the consideration paid, with interest, together with costs and expenses, including an attorney's fee, reasonably and in good faith incurred in defending title and resisting the eviction.
Measure of Damages.
Where the vendee buys the paramount title, the measure of damages is the amount paid therefor, and interest, provided the sum does not exceed the consideration money and interest.
Measure of Damages.
If the purchaser has been actually deprived of part only of the subject of his bargain, his damages correspond.
Geo. Wilson & Son, for appellants.
Town & Jones, for respondents.
On December 25, 1890, defendants made and delivered to Samuel Brooks, now deceased, a warranty deed in the usual form conveying one hundred sixty acres of land. Defendants had never been in actual possession of the land or any part thereof. At the time of the delivery of the deed the land was vacant and unoccupied. Within a few months after the delivery of the deed, the grantee, Samuel Brooks, took the actual possession of the land under the deed, and resided upon the land up to the day of his death. Since that, and up to the present time, his heirs at law, the plaintiffs, have continued such actual possession, and some of them now reside upon the land. On January 17, 1903, an action in partition was brought by a plaintiff, claiming to own an undivided nine-fifteenths interest in the premises, against the heirs of Samuel Brooks, as the owners of an undivided two-fifteenths, and against two other defendants, each alleged to own an undivided two-fifteenths interest. The ownership of such respective undivided interests was found as a fact by the court. On August 9, 1905, the present plaintiffs procured conveyances from other co-tenants of their interests for a total sum of $1,729.80. Of this sum only one dollar was paid to one co-tenant for a two-fifteenths interest, and the remainder to the other co-tenants. Notice of the pendency of the partition suit was served by Brooks on Fred Mohl, one of the defendants in this suit, but not on the other defendant, his wife. This was an action brought by plaintiffs on July 30, 1906, for damages for the breach of covenant contained in the deed. The trial court in this case found these facts. It also found that plaintiffs had accounted for the rental value of said lands to the original owners thereof, as determined in probate proceedings previously referred to.
The defendants urge that the complaint is one for damages for breach of the covenant of seisin only; that this covenant was broken as soon as the deed was delivered, to wit, on December 25, 1890; and that inasmuch as this action was not brought until July 30, 1906, it was barred by the six-year statute of limitations. Section 4076, R.L. 1905. This position is not tenable.
Undoubtedly for some purposes, the covenant for seisin is regarded as broken by failure of title as soon as the deed is delivered; but for the present purpose that rule is not properly invoked. It is the settled law of this state, in conformity with the general opinion on the subject, that "if, at the date of the covenant, there is a superior title in a third person, whenever that title is actually asserted against the covenantee, and the premises claimed under it, and the covenantee is obliged to yield and does yield his claim to such superior title, the covenant * * * is broken." Allis v. Nininger, 25 Minn. 525, per Gilfillan, C.J.; Jones, Real Prop. § 987; 11 Cyc. 1134. The judgment in the partition suit was a sufficient eviction to constitute a breach of covenant, and the purchase out of the outstanding title by the covenantee, after resistance in good faith, in no wise affected the sufficiency of the eviction. It was not necessary that the covenantee should go through the formality of surrendering possession and of immediately re-entering upon the premises. The purchase is equivalent to an entry of the claimant. Parker, C.J., in Loomis v. Bedel, 11 N.H. 74; Ogden v. Ball, 40 Minn. 94, 41 N.W. 453; Cf. Wagner v. Finnegan, 65 Minn. 115, 67 N.W. 795; Jones, Real Prop. § 919 That is to say, the...
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