Des Moines & Ft. D. R. Co. v. Bullard

• Decision Date: 17 October 1893
• Citation: 56 N.W. 498,89 Iowa 749
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court
• Parties: DES MOINES & FT. D. R. CO. v. BULLARD ET AL.

89 Iowa 749

56 N.W. 498

DES MOINES & FT. D. R. CO.

v.BULLARD ET AL.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 17, 1893.

Appeal from district court, Humboldt county; Lot Thomas, Judge.

This is an action in equity to quiet the alleged title of the plaintiff to certain lands in Humboldt county. There was a full hearing on the merits, and a decree for the plaintiff. Defendants appeal.E. F. Bullard, for appellants.

John F. Duncombe, for appellee.

ROTHROCK, J.

1. This case may be said to be a supplement to the case of Bullard v. Railway Co., 62 Iowa, 382, 17 N. W. Rep. 609. It involves the title to the same land. It was held in that case that the title was in the railroad company. The plaintiff in that case is the counsel for the defendants in this appeal, and two of appellants are sons, and the other is his wife. It was not claimed in the cited case that the wife and sons had then any interest in the land. That was a trial of the title of the land, and we will dispose of much that is found in the record in this case by the single remark that the adjudication in the former action disposed of all claim of title which E. F. Bullard had in the land. He was the plaintiff in the action, and he, nor those claiming under him, had no right to commence an action upon one claim of title, and pursue it to the end of final adjudication, as that case was pursued, and then set up other causes of action in another suit, or by way of defense to an action brought by the defendant in the former action; in other words, it was incumbent on E. F. Bullard to assert all the claim he had to the land in the former action. This rule is fundamental, and we have neither the time nor inclination to elaborate it.

2. There were a number of parties defendant to the present action. The only parties who appealed from the decree were Phoebe A. Bullard, the wife of E. F. Bullard, who was an original defendant, and E. G. Bullard and H. B. Bullard, the sons of E. F. Bullard, who made themselves parties by intervention. It is only necessary to say that the decree of the court below was right as to Phoebe A. Bullard. She is the wife, not the widow, of E. F. Bullard, and her inchoate right of dower was cut off by the decree in the former action. The intervener, E. G. Bullard, claims title by a quitclaim deed made by Edward F. Bullard to him on the 26th day of January, 1885, and H. B. Bullard claims as holder of a $3,000 mortgage upon the premises, which was assigned to him by the executors of...