Coffin v. Elgin

• Decision Date: 31 May 1912
• Citation: 147 S.W. 835,243 Mo. 455
• Parties: C. A. COFFIN, Appellant, v. G. S. ELGIN et al., Respondents
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

147 S.W. 835

243 Mo. 455

C. A. COFFIN, Appellant, v. G. S. ELGIN et al., Respondents

Supreme Court of Missouri, First Division

May 31, 1912

Appeal from Greene Circuit Court. -- Hon. J. T. Neville, Judge.

Affirmed.

Burkhead & Clark for appellant.

Hull Delaney & Delaney for respondent.

BOND C. Brown, C., concurs.

OPINION

BOND C.

Plaintiff sues to quiet title to certain lands in Douglas county, Missouri, a part of which he claims to own by limitation and the remainder by record title. The defendants answered by a general denial. The cause was taken to Greene county on change of venue, and submitted to the court on the 2d of April, 1908, when a judgment was rendered in favor of the defendants, for the reason that certain decrees or judgments had in several suits to quiet title, in all of which the present plaintiff was a party defendant, were conclusive against any recovery in the present action. The plaintiff has wholly failed to file in this court any brief, printed argument or assignment of errors other than the insertion of a number of legal propositions at the end of his abstract with citations of cases and a request that the judgment be reversed and judgment be entered here in his favor. We are, therefore, left entirely to the contents of the abstract in order to ascertain what transpired on the trial of the case and what, if any, error then intervened, except that when this case was called we were favored with an oral argument by the learned counsel for appellant wherein he insisted that the title of the defendants (respondents) accrued through the medium of sales for taxes in suits against plaintiff wherein the court had no jurisdiction, and accrued also through certain actions brought against plaintiff and others to quiet title to the same lands by persons under whom the defendants now claim, as to which suits also he claimed the court was not possessed of jurisdiction. The specific objections made by him on his oral argument to the aforesaid proceedings were, first, that in some of such proceedings wherein orders of publication were necessary, the lower court failed to recite in its order of publication that it had designated the newspaper most likely to inform the persons to be notified, and that publications made under such order were not for the statutory period. In the abstract, however, on page 21, the objection interposed as to the newspaper in which the publication was made is only in the following terms; "and the order of publication fails to designate the paper most likely to give notice to defendants." The respondents filed no brief nor made any appearance on this appeal.

The alleged abstract of appellant to which we have been relegated shows that certain suits to quiet title to the same lands were brought against appellant by certain persons under whom defendants now claim to own the land in controversy; that these suits resulted in judgments against appellant, and that the titles of the plaintiffs therein are now by mesne conveyances vested in the present defendants. The abstract does not set out that any appeal was taken by the present plaintiff from the judgments rendered against him in such actions. When the first of these judgments against the present plaintiff in the action to quiet title was introduced, on page 18 of his abstract, the objection then made by appellant was for the reasons which he had given when a sheriff's deed had been introduced, without specifying what those reasons were, and for the further reason that the publication was for less time than that prescribed by statute When the second of these judgments rendered in a collateral suit against appellant was introduced, on page 19 of his abstract, the objection then interposed by appellant was "the order of publication does not designate the paper most likely to give notice to the persons to be notified, and was not published for twenty-eight days." These objections were overruled, to which exceptions appear to be duly saved, on page 28 of his said record. On the introduction of the last of these judgments in the actions to quiet title against appellant, the objection interposed by him was that the order of publication was not published for 28 days, and "said order does not state that the paper designated is the one most likely to give notice to the persons to...