Fuller v. Montague

• Decision Date: 08 December 1892
• Citation: 53 F. 204
• Parties: FULLER et al. v. MONTAGUE et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Tennessee

53 F. 204

FULLER et al. v. MONTAGUE et al.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Tennessee, Southern Division.

December 8, 1892

Wells &amp Body, for complainants.

Wheeler & McDermott, Eakin & Dickey, and W. G. M. Thomas, for defendants.

KEY District Judge.

The bill alleges that complainants are the heirs of Simeon Fuller, Jr., who died in 1846; that in 1839 Fuller and his brother-in-law, Moses Pressly, purchased and had conveyed to them several town lots in Chattanooga jointly, and the deed was duly registered. The bill states that the register's office clearly shows complainants' title, and has given notice to the world that Fuller's title to these lots has never passed from or been divested out of him or his heirs. It is alleged that Fuller made Pressly his agent to take care of this property, pay taxes on it, etc.; that in 1844, two years before the death of Fuller, Pressly conveyed, or purported to do so, the entire title to these lots to one Whitley, in betrayal of the trust reposed in him, and that the deed was withheld from registration until 1851, so that possession might perfect the title before knowledge of the conveyance should be given, but it was registered in 1851. These various transactions, it is alleged, were concealed fraudulently from complainants and their ancestor until 1887 when complainant John P. Fuller, in searching through his Uncle Pressly's papers, found the original deed which conveyed the lots to Fuller and Pressly, and, finding no deed conveying his father's interest to Pressly, he suspected fraud, 'and his reflections led to investigation.'

The bill is not filed against the wrongdoers, Pressly or Whitley their heirs, representatives, or estates, but against the present claimants of the lots, and seeks to have complainants declared entitled to an undivided interest of one half in the lots, and to have the lots partitioned. The bill does not charge fraud upon the defendants, but claims that the register's books give them notice of complainants' title. It is true that the prime object of our registration laws is to give notice to those who may purchase lands as to the character of title, and whether there are other and better titles than that which they propose to purchase, yet when parties know, or have reason to believe, that they or those under whom they claim have or have had title to lands, the register's books would be the repository which they would examine to ascertain how their interests may appear. It is true that complainants rather feebly allege that they had no knowledge of the existence of their interests until the original deed was discovered, but in another part of their bill they assert that their uncle told them that he had owned lands together wit their father, but that before his death their father had sold them all to him. Again, we find the following language in regard to what Fuller, the ancestor, said:

'And in his last illness, and when death approached (he) expressed his assurance that his brother-in-law and cotenant, Pressly, would care for and preserve the investment in and about Chattanooga so that it might be

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