Crooks v. Whitford

• Decision Date: 22 April 1879
• Citation: 40 Mich. 599
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: Leverett Crooks v. Emeline A. T. Whitford

40 Mich. 599

Leverett Crooks v. Emeline A. T. Whitford

Supreme Court of Michigan

April 22, 1879

Submitted April 10, 1879

Appeal from Kalamazoo. Submitted April 10. Decided April 22.

Decree affirmed with costs.

Brown Howard & Roos for complainant.

Breese & Stearns for defendant. A bill to set aside deeds must bring in all the parties to them. Gaylords v Kelshaw, 1 Wal. 81.

Graves J. The other Justices concurred.

OPINION

Graves J.

The defendant appeals from a decree requiring her to release to complainant whatever right, title or interest, and no other, which she received through a deed to her from Pelick Stevens and wife, in and to the south half of the southwest quarter of section five in town two south of range ten west in Kalamazoo county.

The land was patented to one John W. Keene, September 10, 1838, and subsequently one Frederick Booker obtained several tax-titles to the lot, and then conveyed to one Seth Wheelock, who died testate, and holding under these tax-titles, in 1868. The defendant is one of his heirs-at-law, and her husband, Porter H. Whitford, and her mother, Christina Wheelock, were made executor and executrix of the testator. In 1869 Keene, the patentee, brought ejectment for the lot against the executor and executrix, and in March, 1872, final judgment in the circuit court passed against the plaintiff. September 6, 1872, Keene and wife conveyed to Aaron Benedict, and the deed was recorded October 18th.

In January, 1874, Benedict conveyed to complainant, but this deed was not recorded, and in June following was destroyed. Between the time of that conveyance and the time when the instrument was destroyed, namely May 27, 1874, Benedict deeded to one John H. Blaney, and then in the month following and on the very occasion when complainant's deed was destroyed, he made another to complainant in place of it. It will not escape notice that when he deeded to Blaney the first deed to complainant was merely unrecorded. It had not then been destroyed.

The deed from Benedict to Blaney was placed on record the day of its execution, and on the same day the latter deeded to Pelick Stevens, and this was recorded the next day, May 28th.

April 7th, 1875, Stevens deeded to defendant, and the deed was recorded the same day. The second deed from Benedict to complainant was not recorded until August 1, 1876.

The position that the bill should be dismissed because Benedict and Stevens are not parties is not tenable. The substance of the case really alleged is that complainant being the holder of an unrecorded title, his grantor fraudulently deeded to another who placed such deed on record; that defendant claims under that deed as purchaser of whatever right and benefit it secured; and that neither the grantee named therein, nor his grantee, nor ...