Gatewood v. House

• Decision Date: 31 October 1877
• Parties: GATEWOOD, APPELLANT v. HOUSE.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

65 Mo. 663

GATEWOOD, APPELLANT

v.HOUSE.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1877.

Appeal from Audrain Circuit Court.--HON. G. PORTER, Judge.

Thos. D. Hay and Henderson & Shields for appellant.

The proposition that a deed may be good as between the parties in the matter of description and yet insufficient to notify a third person who knows its contents, is a monstrous absurdity. If the description in a deed be so indefinite or uncertain as not to identify the land with reasonable certainty, the deed is not good for any purpose. But if it is sufficiently definite to effect a conveyance from one party to another, and so that the court can see what land is intended to be conveyed, then in the nature of things, it must be equally definite to outsiders. The deed itself is the only legitimate source of information of what is conveyed for everybody, parties to the instrument and all the rest of the world. How can it possibly convey to the grantee any more information than it does to a subsequent purchaser? The grantee's knowledge derived from other sources is of no avail for any purpose. The deed with its references must impart to him all the knowledge he gets of the land conveyed. And whatever notice the deed is capable of thus imparting to him, it is capable of imparting to every one who may read it. The description in the deed to Fyler, by reference to the date of the entry, the name of the party entering, the office at which the entry was made, and the number of the entry certificate, was a complete identification of the land conveyed for all purposes whatever. Clemens v. Rannells, 34 Mo. 579; Nelson v. Brodhack, 44 Mo. 596; Muldrow v. Robinson, 58 Mo. 331; Fenwick v. Gill, 38 Mo. 510.

The prior date of the Fyler deed and the actual notice thereof to Noyes give it a necessary precedence. Wag. Stat. 595, sec. 35; 277, secs. 25-26; Partridge v. Smith, 2 Biss. 183; George v. Kent, 7 Allen 16; White v. Hermann, 51 Ill. 243; Choteau v. Jones, 11 Ill. 300; Gilbert v. Jesse, 31 Wis. 110; Mahoney v. Middleton, 41 Cal. 41; Williamson v. Brown, 15 N. Y. 354; Baker v. Bliss, 39 N. Y. 70; McChesney v. Wainright, 5 Ohio 452; Mulliken v. Graham,72 Penn. St. 484; McGavock v. Deery, 1 Cold. 265

Elijah Robinson and Craddock & Musick for respondent.

The instructions asked by plaintiff required the court to assume and tell the jury that Noyes, if he had notice of the existence of the deed from Herrick to Fyler, actually knew that the one hundred and sixty acres of land in controversy were contained in the six thousand acres embraced in that deed, however indefinite, vague and uncertain may have been the description; and an instruction of that character would certainly have been erroneous. Moffat v. Conklin, 35 Mo. 453; Turner v. Loler, 34 Mo. 461; Merritt v. Given, Id. 98. The registration of a deed wherein the description was so defective could not be notice to any one. 3 Washburn Real Prop. 286; 20 Ohio 261; 8 Vermont 172. The deed itself did not show that the one hundred and sixty acres of land in controversy were included in it, neither could that fact be ascertained by anything in the office of the recorder of deeds for Audrain county; and a subsequent purchaser could not be required to go elsewhere than to the recorder's office to ascertain the state of the title to any tract of land; 19 Iowa 557. It is the duty of a purchaser of real estate not only to have his deed recorded, but to procure such a deed and have it placed on record, as will inform parties who examine record of what land is intended to be conveyed; and if he fails to do this, the fault lies at his own door, and there must the damage fall, if any result from his negligence in not procuring a perfect deed. The theory of the registration law is that the county recorder's office shall contain all that is necessary to the protection of any purchaser in buying any tract of land in the county. Where the records are thus full, parties who are not guided by them purchase at their peril; when deficient, innocent purchasers are protected, and those whose duty it was to have them full must suffer. It is not intended by the law that purchasers shall be sent elsewhere (as in this case to Palmyra, Boonville or Washington City) to trace the title to a tract of land, and that without a clue even to guide the search. Our system of subdividing and describing lands by the range, township, section and parts of section, gives, as was intended, a brief but clear and most accurate means of identifying lands and, when applicable, certainly no other means of giving notice on the record should be substituted, particularly as it is thus that the lands of the country are almost universally known and described. Terrell v. Andrew county, 44 Mo. 309; Acer v. Westcott, 46 N. Y. 384; S. C. 7 Am. Rep. 355.

HOUGH, J.

This was an action of ejectment for the southeast quarter of section thirty-two, township fifty-one, ange five west, in Audrain county. There was a verdict and judgment for defendant, and plaintiff has appealed. The land in controversy was entered by one Isaac Herrick in 1836. He received a patent for the same...