Carr v. Bosworth

• Decision Date: 23 April 1886
• Citation: 27 N.W. 913,68 Iowa 669
• Parties: CARR v. BOSWORTH AND OTHERS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

68 Iowa 669

27 N.W. 913

CARR

v.BOSWORTH AND OTHERS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed April 23, 1886.

Appeal from Palo Alto district court.

Action in chancery to quiet the title of plaintiff in certain lands. The defendants separately answered the petition, and set up claims for relief in separate cross-bills, to all which demurrers were sustained; and, defendants refusing to plead further, a decree was entered against all of the defendants granting the relief prayed by plaintiff. Defendants appeal.Harrison & Jenswold, for appellants, H. Bosworth & Sons.

Soper, Crawford & Carr, for appellee, Robert A. Carr.

BECK, J.

1. The petition alleges that one Rider, being the owner of the land in controversy, in 1873, with his wife, conveyed it by mortgage to one Lincoln; that in 1874 defendants Bosworth & Sons recovered a judgment in the district court of the county wherein the land is situated against Rider; that in 1875 a proceeding to foreclose the mortgage was brought against Rider and wife and others and the Bosworths, and notice was served on the defendants last named by publication, they being non-residents of the state, and upon the other defendants personally; and that in the same year a decree was entered and the land was sold thereon to one Bateman, and in the following year a sheriff's deed of the land was made to him. It is alleged that proof of publication and some other papers connected with the case are lost. A copy of the record, so far as the same remains, is made an exhibit to the petition. The petition shows that prior to the commencement of foreclosure proceedings, in 1875, the Bosworths caused the land to be sold upon their execution; that the sale was wholly abandoned until 1884, when a sheriff's deed was made thereon to the Bosworths, who conveyed their interest to co-defendant Ware. It is further shown that plaintiff acquired the title obtained by Bateman through several intermediate conveyances. It is alleged that the sheriff's sale to the Bosworths is void, and is a cloud upon plaintiff's title, which it is prayed may be removed by the decree to be rendered in this case.

The defendants file separate answers, and cross-petitions, but they are substantially alike as to the allegations herein recited. In their answer they deny “that they have any knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth” of the allegations contained in specified paragraphs of the petition. This, in effect, is a denial of the matter pleaded in these paragraphs, and puts the same in issue. Code, § 2655, par. 2. These paragraphs allege and show the mortgage upon which the foreclosure was had, the foreclosure proceedings, the chain of title, under which plaintiff claims, and the allegation that the sheriff's...