Eaton v. Guarantee Co. of North Dakota

• Citation: 88 N.W. 1029,11 N.D. 79
• Decision Date: 08 January 1902
• Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

88 N.W. 1029

11 N.D. 79

JAMES B. EATON v. THE GUARANTEE COMPANY OF NORTH DAKOTA

Supreme Court of North Dakota

January 8, 1902

Appeal from District Court, Bottineau county; Cowan, J.

Action by James B. Eaton against the Guarantee Company of North Dakota. From an order overruling a demurrer to the complaint defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Demurrer sustained.

E Ashley Mears, for appellant.

James B. Eaton, for respondent.

OPINION

WALLIN, C. J.

This action is brought to quiet title, and the complaint alleges, in substance, that the plaintiff has a fee-simple estate in the land described in the complaint, and that the defendant claims to have a mortgage lien upon the land. For relief plaintiff asks that the defendant be required to set forth its adverse claims to the land, and, in substance, that it may be adjudged that the defendant has no title, estate, or lien upon the land in dispute. To this complaint a general demurrer for insufficiency was interposed by the defendant, whereupon the issue joined by the demurrer was presented to the district court for determination, and that court, after hearing counsel upon said issue, overruled the demurrer to the complaint, and from the order overruling the demurrer defendant has appealed to this court.

In this court counsel for the appellant makes two points in support of the demurrer. His first contention is that the statute under which the complaint was obviously framed is unconstitutional, and hence void; and this claim is based upon the ground that said statute violates the provisions of § 61 of the state constitution, which are as follows: "No bill shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title, but a bill which violates this provision shall be invalidated thereby only as to so much thereof as shall not be so expressed." Chapter 5, Laws 1901, in terms permits an action to quiet title as against an adverse lien as well as against an adverse estate or title in land. In assailing this statute counsel argue, in substance, that the act, in its body, embraces several distinct subjects, and that the title of the act is also obnoxious as expressing more than one subject. The title is as follows: "An act to provide for making unknown persons parties defendant in certain civil actions; and to amend § § 5904, 5905, 5906, 5907, 5907a, 5908, 5909, 5910, 5911, 5912, 5913, of the Revised Codes of North Dakota for 1899, relating to the determination of conflicting claims to real estate and other actions and enacting other provisions relating thereto." A perusal of the body of the act will disclose the fact that the same consists wholly of amendments of the several sections of the Revised Codes of 1899 which are expressly referred to in the title of the act; i. e., the body of the act amends and re-enacts the sections of the Code of 1899 which are named in the title. Such amendments introduce certain changes in the statute, and add a few provisions or features not found in the original enactment; but a careful perusal of the several amendments has failed to show that any new matter is incorporated in the amendments which is not germane to the subject of the original act. We have failed to discover that any foreign or extraneous subject has been smuggled into the statute under the guise of amendments, and hence we have reached the conclusion that the body of the amendatory act embraced in chapter 5, Laws 1901, contains but a single subject, which...