Criner v. Ritchie

• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Griffin Smith, Chief Justice.
• Citation: Criner v. Ritchie, 208 S.W.2d 447, 212 Ark. 815 (Ark. 1948)
• Decision Date: 26 January 1948
• Docket Number: 4-8235
• Parties: Criner v. Ritchie

208 S.W.2d 447

212 Ark. 815

Criner v. Ritchie

No. 4-8235

Supreme Court of Arkansas

January 26, 1948

Rehearing Denied March 8, 1948.

Appeal from Ouachita Chancery Court, Second Division; W. A. Speer Chancellor.

Affirmed.

C M. Martin, Henry B. Whitley and J. R. Wilson, for appellant.

McKay, McKay & Anderson and Gaughan, McClellan & Gaughan, for appellee.

Griffin Smith, Chief Justice. Mr. Justice McFaddin did not take part in the consideration or determination of this case.

OPINION

Griffin Smith, Chief Justice.

The case, like others of like nature coming from areas where unusual developments affect values, presents issues that have acquired importance because oil and gas have been found.

Fee ownership of approximately sixty acres, and the status of mineral and royalty deeds, are involved.

Prior to 1860 a plantation proprietor named Mack C. Smith owned Reason Criner -- a slave set free by the Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863. The slave's son, John H., lived with his father on the Smith lands in 1886. Record ownership of the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section nineteen, township fifteen south, range eighteen west, (Ouachita County) was in George L. Ritchie in 1894 and so continued until the litigation from which this appeal comes, although there were tax forfeitures and redemptions which are in no sense controlling here. Ritchie's muniment of title was a deed from Creel Lumber Company, presumptively a corporation.

John H. Criner and his wife, claiming ownership -- as the evidence in the case at bar discloses -- cleared and improved the land the father said he owned, but through mistake erected buildings south of the line between sections nineteen and thirty. This encroachment extended 110 yards, and as projected east and west involves approximately ten acres. Title to the south half of the north half of the northwest quarter of section thirty was asserted by John H. Criner through purchase from Peter Todd (John's brother-in-law) in 1911. This is an irregular tract susceptible of description by metes and bounds only.

In February 1939 Criner and his wife, Mary, executed an oil and gas lease and a mineral deed to E. E. Scott and H. Andrews. By the terms of these documents only forty acres described as the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section nineteen were affected. Consideration was that the grantees should procure a decree quieting title in the grantors, or effectuate the same end by satisfactory means. The deed and lease were subsequently cancelled when it was judicially determined that consideration for their execution had failed. However, they were placed of record within two weeks after execution.

The suit resulting in cancellation, but broader in intended scope, was filed in November 1945 by J. C. Ritchie for himself and as attorney in fact for others. The decree was rendered December 10, 1946.

In September 1945 Ritchie, for himself and others he was authorized to represent, executed a deed conveying half of the mineral royalties pertaining to the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section nineteen, and the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section thirty. Within this area of eighty acres was all of the land claimed by Criner, either through purchase, adverse possession, or otherwise. V. S. Parham, to whom the deed was executed for a consideration of $ 4,000, claims to have been an innocent purchaser, and the Court so found. Others who joined in the intervention were parties to whom Parham had conveyed certain interests. In finding that Parham and his grantees were protected, the decree vested fee title in Criner, subject to the outstanding rights.

The Ritchie interests have appealed from that part of the decree and from a finding that they should refund $ 3,000 representing the sum received from Parham -- this for the benefit of Criner; -- while Criner has appealed from the holding that the royalty deed is good.

In holding that Criner was entitled to the property, subject to the rights of Parham and his grantees, the Court considered testimony showing that prior to 1894 Reason Criner had "bargained" with Creel Lumber Company for the forty acres in section nineteen. A contract of some kind -- the exact nature of which John Criner did not understand -- was made between John's father and the Lumber Company, in consequence of which the ex-slave paid $ 50 in cash or its equivalent and owed $ 50 on the purchase price of $ 100. John testified that he agreed to pay this balance because his father was old; and he, (John) having but recently married, desired to utilize the property for home purposes. The Lumber Company is alleged to have executed bond for title.

Because title was in the Lumber Company when Reason Criner made the contract, and because the Lumber Company in November 1894 conveyed the property to George L. Ritchie, John Criner, according to his testimony, "made a deal" with Ritchie to assist in perfecting title. John Criner and his wife each testified that a deed was executed by Ritchie. It was never placed of record, and was lost. Neither could there be found the bond for title or any recorded entry relating to it.

By some process presumptively official (Koonce v. Woods, 211 Ark. 440, 201 S.W.2d 748; Deniston v. Langsford, 211 Ark. 780, 202 S.W.2d 760) the land was assessed in 1894 in the name of Ransom Criner and after having been sold for taxes in 1895 and bought by H. W. Myer, it was redeemed by John H. Criner. There was a penciled notation on the record of certificate of purchase indicating that it had been transferred to George L. Ritchie. Thereafter John H. Criner paid taxes until 1916.

Ritchie died in 1913, leaving an estate inventoried at more than $ 360,000. March 21, 1913, George R. Gordon was appointed administrator. He at once asserted claim to the so-called Criner land, had it assessed as property of the Ritchie heirs, and began paying taxes. During the greater part of the ensuing period no question appears to have been raised regarding Criner's right to possession, as distinguished from...