Davis v. Stegall

• Decision Date: 08 April 1963
• Docket Number: No. 42642,42642
• Parties: Hoyle D. DAVIS v. J. M. STEGALL.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 813

151 So.2d 813

246 Miss. 593

Hoyle D. DAVIS v. J. M. STEGALL.

No. 42642.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

April 8, 1963.

Jesse L. Yancy, Jr., B. A. Jaggers, Bruce, for appellant.

Adams, Long & Adams, Tupelo, Byrd P. Mauldin, Pontotoc, for appellee.

RODGERS, Justice.

This is an action brought in the Chancery Court of Pontotoc County for the reformation of two certain deeds alleged to have erroneously described the property sold. The first deed made by Mrs. Clara Mae Payne to J. M. Stegall is said to have been erroneously drawn so as to have left out of the deed a certain fourteen and one-half acres of land intended to have been included by the grantor and the grantee. The second deed from Mrs. Clara Mae Payne to Hoyle D. Davis (written at a later date) is alleged to have erroneously included the fourteen and one-half acres left out of the prior deed. The bill also seeks temporary and permanent injunction against Hoyle D. Davis in favor of J. M. Stegall to prevent the former from interfering with the latter's use of the land here involved.

Mrs. Clara Mae Payne gave Mr. Stegall a quitclaim deed to the property in dispute at a later date, and on her application was permitted by order of the chancery court to join in the original bill as a party-complainant.

The chancery court granted a temporary injunction against Hoyle D. Davis enjoining him from molesting complainant Stegall in his occupancy and use of the property involved. The case was then tried on its merits, and the chancellor dictated his opinion into the record, in which he determined from the testimony introduced that the relief sought in the original bill should be granted. A decree was entered by the court reforming both deeds, describing the property in metes and bounds, as well as section, township and range. The defendant, Hoyle D. Davis, was permanently enjoined from interfering with the use of the described property by the owner, J. M. Stegall.

The appellant has appealed to this Court from the decree above-mentioned and assigns as error the court's ruling that there was a mutual mistake made between the parties in the deed to J. M. Stegall; that, Hoyle D. Davis, was a bona fide purchaser of the land without notice, because the deed to J. M. Stegall was in escrow and had not been delivered; that, the Stegall deed had not been recorded and appellant did not have actual or constructive notice of the J. M. Stegal claim to the land in dispute, and appellant was therefore an innocent purchaser.

The testimony reveals that appellant inspected that part of the eighty acre tract under fence, later described in his deed, but did not go upon the fourteen and one-half acre plot in the bottom before he purchased the land. He relied upon the statement of Mrs. Payne that she had fourteen and one-half acres of land 'down yonder.' He did not molest Mr. Stegall in the occupancy of the disputed land from the 4th of January 1961 (the date of his deed) until the spring of 1962, during which time Mr. Stegall made a crop on the disputed fourteen and one-half acres of land.

The record shows that at the time appellant purchased the land from Mrs. Payne, Jim Young went to the bank and got the Stegall deed and brought it to the chancery clerk's office. Appellant knew the chancery clerk used the deed in writing the Davis deed and knew Mr. Stegall had purchased some land from Mrs. Payne. Moreover, Mrs. Payne told appellants she had sold some of the land to Mr. Stegall.

I.

Appellant argues that the deed from Mrs. Payne to J. M. Stegall had not been delivered at the time he bought the land described in the deed from Mrs. Payne to the appellant; that the deed left in escrow at the bank was a verbal agreement and was therefore in violation of the statute of frauds (Sec. 264(c), Code 1942) requiring a contract for the sale of the land to be in writing.

We are of the opinion, however, that the invalidity of the deed between Mrs. Payne and J. M. Stegall on the ground that it violated the provisions of the statute of frauds cannot be raised by appellant because the statute of frauds does not make a contract void but only allows the defense to its enforcement which defense is personal to the defendant, and may not be raised by some third party. Grisham v. Lutric & Chandler, 76 Miss. 444, 24 So. 169; Wirtz v. Gordon, 187 Miss. 866, 184 So. 798, 192 So. 29; Peaslee Gaulbert Paint & Varnish Company v. Lumpkin, 238 Miss. 637, 119 So.2d 772; Powell v. Sowell, Substituted Trustee, Miss., 145 So.2d 168.

II.

The testimony in the record overwhelmingly sustains the opinion of the chancellor that Mrs. Clara Mae Payne intended to sell, and that J. M. Stegall intended to buy, the fourteen and one-half acres here in dispute, and also a twenty-three acre block, all in 'the bottom' at the time she made the deed to him, and that because of a mutual mistake, this land was left out of the deed. Moreover, Mrs. Payne, the grantor, admitted the mistake and joined as a party-complainant....