Dugger v. Bocock

• Decision Date: 01 October 1881
• Citation: 104 U.S. 596,26 L.Ed. 846
• Parties: DUGGER v. BOCOCK
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

104 U.S. 596

104 U.S. 596

26 L.Ed. 846

DUGGER v. BOCOCK.

October Term, 1881

ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Samuel Field Phillips for the plaintiffs in error.

Mr. Michael L. Woods for the defendants in error.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suit in equity begun by the appellants, two of the children and heirs of Henry Dugger, deceased. The case, which was decided on demurrer to the bill, may be stated generally as follows:——

Henry Dugger, a citizen of Alabama, died in 1852, leaving Alice G. Dugger, his widow, and eight children, of whom the present appellants were the youngest. The widow was appointed by the Probate Court of Mr engo County administratrix of the estate, which consisted of lands and personal property. The estate being free from debt, she, on the 3d of September, 1860, filed her petition in the Probate Court for leave to sell the lands for the purposes of distribution. The proper order was made, and on the 19th of November they were sold to Willis P. Bocock, one of the appellees, at $42.01 an acre, amounting in the aggregate to $28,806.40, for which he gave her his three notes with sureties, one for $10,370.30, payable Nov. 19, 1861, another for $11,138.47, payable Nov. 19, 1862, and the other for $11,906.64, payable Nov. 19, 1863. The sale was reported to and confirmed by the court, but under the law of Alabama the legal title to the lands did not pass from the heirs to the purchaser until the purchase-money was paid, and a conveyance actually made under an order of the court for that purpose. Until such a conveyance, the heirs might maintain ejectment for the recovery of possession if the conditions of the sale were not complied with. Doe v. Hardy, 52 Ala. 297.

It is averred in the bill 'that although said Willis P. Bocock was the ostensible purchaser of the whole of said land, yet, by some arrangement between him and said Henry A. Tayloe, made before or at the time of said purchase, said Tayloe obtained by the understanding with Bocock the one hundred and ninety-six acres of land before mentioned, and undertook with said Bocock to pay the purchase—money for the same at the rate aforesaid, and said Tayloe went into and has since had possession thereof.' The present suit is brought with reference to this one hundred and ninety-six acres only, the whole property sold consisting of something more than six hundred and forty acres.

The bill then proceeds to state as follows:——

'VI. Your orator and oratrix further show to your Honor that neither said Bocock nor any one else has ever paid the purchase-money evidenced by said notes, or any part thereof, according to the terms of his purchase, or in any manner, except as hereinafter stated, and the purchase-money for said one hundred and ninety-six acres, with interest thereon, remains wholly unpaid.

'VII. That said Bocock took up the said two notes first falling due with Confederate States treasury notes, and the said note last falling due he took up by handing over to Mrs. Alice G. Dugger bonds of the Confederate States. Your orator and oratrix, who were then infants, state, upon information and belief, that Bocock and the defendant Henry A. Tayloe together urged said Alice G. Dugger to accept said Confederate notes and bonds in payment of said Bocock's notes, at a time when all of her children who were of age were absent from home, and the said Alice G. Dugger received such Confederate notes for the note first falling due without remonstrance; she reluctantly yielded and received the Confederate notes for the note secondly falling due, but when they urged her to accept the said treasury notes or Confederate bonds for the last note, she peremptorily refused to accept said Confederate notes and bonds, which were then really almost worthless, in payment of said note, and for a long time she continued to refuse, and sent the said Bocock and Tayloe away without taking the offer; but she had great confidence in and esteem for said Bocock and Tayloe, who were her neighbors, and were men of high character, and they brought great pressure to bear on her to induce her to take the Confederate notes or bonds. They represented to her that she would be ruinously taxed by the Confederate government if she refused to take Confederate money in payment of said note, and that she would be made to pay the tax in gold, and they or one of them reported her refusal to the Confederate tax-collector, who called upon her and told her he was informed of her refusal, and finally, under great pressure, under protest, and unwillingly, the said Alice G. Dugger very reluctantly yielded and took said Confederate bonds, and gave up to said Bocock said last note. The sons f Alice G. Dugger then of age were absent in the army.'

Payment of the purchase-money was never reported in form to the court by Mrs. Dugger, and no order was ever made for her to convey the property. Neither did she ever execute any conveyance, but at the April Term, 1864, of the court she filed her final account as administratrix, in which she charged herself with the purchase-money, making no mention of the fact that it had been paid in the notes and bonds of the Confederate States. This account was audited and settled by the court, and a distribution ordered. The balance found due from the administratrix was $40,170.41, of which the share of each distributee was $5,021.30. These appellants were then infants, and the record shows that in the proceedings for settlement and distribution they were represented by H. A. Woolf. Mrs. Dugger was at the time their guardian, and she charged herself in her accounts as guardian, which were then pending before the court for partial settlement, with the distributive shares of her wards.

The 1866, after the close of the war, no conveyance having been made to Bocock, Mrs. Dugger and her surviving children, including the present appellants, who were still infants, commenced in one of the State courts of Alabama a suit, in the nature of an action of ejectment, against Bocock and Tayloe to recover the lands. Fearing that an attempt would be made by the defendants to get a deed, the widow and heirs, on the 12th of May, 1866, filed in the Probate Court their protest against any order to that effect; but the bill avers that Bocock did, 'for the express purpose of defeating said action at law, on the twenty-first day of March, 1868, file his petition in said Probate Court, . . . wherein he represented and stated that he had paid the whole purchase-money for said lands, when in fact he had never paid it, or any part thereof, otherwise than in Confederate States treasury notes and bonds, as already herein set forth in detail, and further setting forth in his petition that the said Alice G. Dugger had not reported such payment, though more than a reasonable time had elapsed for her to have done so, and praying that an order for a conveyance of said lands to him might be made, and said Probate Court, notwithstanding said caveat and protest filed by the heirs-at-law of said Henry Dugger, deceased, long before that time, and which was then on file, and without notice to the administratrix or to any of the said heirs, and without the knowledge by them of said application, and upon exparte proof made by said Bocock, did appoint Henry A. Woolf, a brother of the judge of said court and an entire stranger to the estate, having no interest therein or knowledge of the affairs thereof, to execute titles to said Bocock, and said Woolf, in compliance with said order and decree of said court, made conveyances of said lands to said...