Castner v. Walrod

• Decision Date: 30 September 1876
• Citation: 83 Ill. 171,1876 WL 10311,25 Am.Rep. 369
• Parties: AMOS CASTNER et al.v.JAMES WALROD.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

83 Ill. 171

1876 WL 10311 (Ill.)

25 Am.Rep. 369

AMOS CASTNER et al.

v.JAMES WALROD.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

September Term, 1876.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Kane county; the Hon. THEODORE D. MURPHY, Judge, presiding.

Messrs. WHEATON, SMITH & MCDOLE, for the plaintiffs in error.

Mr. J. H. MAYBORNE, for the defendant in error.

Mr. JUSTICE CRAIG delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was a bill in equity, brought by plaintiffs in error in the circuit court of Kane county, against James Walrod, to enforce the conveyance of a certain tract of land, the equitable title of which, it is claimed, belongs to them.

The defendant, James Walrod, put in an answer to the bill, and, replication having been filed, a hearing was had upon the pleadings and proofs, and the court entered a decree dismissing the bill. The complainants bring the record here, and urge as a ground of reversal that the court erred in dismissing the bill upon the evidence contained in the record.

It appears, from the evidence preserved in the record, that on the 27th day of October, 1849, Amos Haskins, the father of the complainants, purchased the land in controversy of one Owen Hall, for the sum of $140, payable, $50 on the 1st day of October, 1850, $50 in two and $40 in three years from the date of purchase, with six per cent interest thereon. Haskins gave his promissory notes for the purchase money, and received of Hall a bond, providing for a conveyance of the land upon the payment of the notes. Haskins went into possession of the land under his purchase, and made slight improvements thereon. In the summer of 1850, he lost the bond for a deed, which was subsequently found by his son, Asa Haskins, who is one of the complainants in the bill. On the 16th day of October, 1850, Asa Haskins obtained of the defendant $35 or $40 for one month, and assigned the bond, in the name of his father, as security for the money. Asa Haskins testified that the money thus obtained of the defendant was used, in connection with other money which he had, to pay the first fifty dollar note, and the interest on the other notes given for the land.

On the 4th day of November, 1850, Amos Haskins died. The money which had been loaned of defendant not having been paid, on the 19th day of November, 1850, the defendant presented the bond to Hall, and called for a deed as assignee of Amos Haskins, and upon the payment of the deferred payments, one of $50 and the other of $40, Hall, on that date, executed and delivered to the defendant a deed for the premises, which was, on the day it was executed, placed upon record. Immediately after receiving the deed, James Walrod took possession of the premises thereunder, and has remained in possession ever since, made valuable improvements, and paid all taxes assessed thereon. After Walrod had obtained the deed of Hall, he made an effort to settle with the widow and heirs, and obtain a conveyance from them. In this, however, he failed, except as to the widow and Asa, who, upon a certain consideration paid them, executed an instrument, in writing, on the 20th day of December, 1850, conveying their interest in the premises to him.

No legal proceedings of any character were instituted by the complainants to obtain their rights in the premises, although they were fully informed of the manner in which the defendant acquired the title, until the filing of this bill, on the 20th day of January, 1869.

While the facts disclosed by the record might have warranted a court of equity, had the complainants invoked the aid of the court in apt time, in decreeing the relief prayed for in the bill, yet where the complainants, with a full knowledge of all the facts in their possession, have slept upon their rights for a period of nineteen years, and have failed to give any satisfactory reason for the delay, and have permitted the defendant to improve and develop the property until it has become valuable, the case is presented in entirely a different aspect.

The principle that must control a case of this character has been clearly stated by Lord CAMDEN, in Smith v. Clay, 3 Brown's Chancery Reports, in these words: “That a court of equity, which is never active in relief against conscience or public convenience, has always refused its aid to stale demands where the party has slept upon his rights for a great length of time. Nothing can call this court into activity but conscience, good faith and reasonable diligence. Where these are wanting, the court is passive and does nothing. Laches and neglect are always discountenanced, and therefore, from the beginning of this jurisdiction, there was always a limitation of suit in this court.”

The principle announced in the case cited has been so long sanctioned and upheld both in the courts of England and this country, and the doctrine that courts of equity will not lend their aid to enforce stale demands so well understood and so well established, that the citation of authorities to sustain the question would seem to be unnecessary. The question has, however, frequently arisen in this court, and the decisions are uniform. Beach v. Shaw, 57 Ill. 25; Rogers v. Simons, 55 Ill. 76; Winchell v. Edwards, 57 Ill. 45; Carpenter v. Carpenter, 70 Ill, 457.

In the absence of the existence of a statute of limitations, the time in which a party will be barred from relief in a court of equity must necessarily depend, to a certain extent, upon the facts of each case, as it may arise; but when the statute has fixed the period of limitation under which the claim, if interposed in a court of law, would be barred, courts of equity, by analogy, follow the limitation provided by law. This is fully established in Kane County v. Herrington, 50 Ill. 239, where it is said: “Where the Statute of Limitations would bar an action at law, and the matter is litigated in chancery, the latter tribunal, following the analogies of the law in such cases, would hold the claim to be stale, and refuse the relief sought.” To the same effect are Angell on Limitations, sec. 467, and Chalmondeley v. Clinton, 2 Jac. & Wal. 141.

A court of equity will, however, often treat a lapse of a less period than that provided in actions at law as a presumptive bar, on the ground of discouraging stale claims, or gross laches or unexplained acquiescence in the assertion of an adverse right. 2 Story Eq. Jur. sec. 1520.

An application of these principles to the facts disclosed by the record, would seem to leave no room to doubt the correctness of the decree rendered by the circuit court.

The record discloses that the defendant, on the 19th day of November, 1850, obtained a deed of the land in controversy of Owen Hall, who, it is conceded, held the legal title, deducible of record from the State or the United States. The deed was placed upon record, the defendant moved upon the land, and from that time to the filing of the bill he resided upon and held the actual possession of the entire tract as a residence. Under the limitation laws of the State, known as the act of 1835, possession by actual residence under a connected title, in law or equity, deducible of record from this State or the United States, for a period of seven years, is a bar to a recovery at law. The bill was not filed until the 20th day of January, 1869. The bar to a recovery of the possession of the land in an action at law was complete twelve years before the filing of the bill.

But it is urged by complainants, that they are not barred by the lapse of time, because the defendant acquired the title by fraud. If fraud had been established, that can not be held a sufficient excuse for the delay and laches of the complainants. As early as 1850 the complainants were fully cognizant of all the facts under which the defendant procured the title to the premises, and the delay of nineteen years before proceeding to assert their rights in a court of equity is utterly unaccounted for.

The case of Cox v. Montgomery, 36 Ill. 396, was a bill in equity to avoid a contract for the exchange of lands, on the ground of fraud. The proof established the existence of fraud, but in deciding the question in regard to the time in which a bill should be filed, it was said: “This species of remedy must be invoked with reasonable diligence. In a country where the value of real estate changed as rapidly as in Illinois, it would be clearly unwise to permit a purchaser of land to retain it for nearly eighteen months after the discovery of the fraud, before filing his bill to rescind. This is an unreasonable delay, which a court of chancery can not tolerate.”

The complainants have cited some decisions of other courts upon the question, but a reference to them is not deemed necessary, as the case cited is conclusive upon the point raised. It is, however, urged by the complainants, that, at the time the defendant acquired the title to the land, three of complainants then were and still are under the disability of coverture, and as to them the Statute of Limitations did not run, nor are they concluded by laches or acquiescence.

The position taken might be regarded more plausible were it not for an act of the legislature, adopted April 24th, 1861, known as “An act to protect married women in their separate property.” Prior to this act, the possession of lands by actual residence, under a connected title deducible of record, would not constitute a bar to a recovery as against a feme covert. The saving clause in the act provided, in all the foregoing cases in which the person or persons who shall have a right of entry, title or cause of action, is or shall be, at the time of such right of entry, title or cause of action, under the age of twenty-one years, insane or feme covert, such person or persons may make such entry or institute such action, so that the same be done within such time as is within the different sections of this chapter limited, after his or her becoming of full age, sane or feme sole.

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