Godfrey v. Valentine
| Decision Date | 09 March 1891 |
| Citation | 45 Minn. 502 |
| Parties | WILLIAM J. GODFREY <I>vs.</I> WILLIAM J. VALENTINE. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Kitchel, Cohen & Shaw and Berryhill & Davison, for appellant.
H. L. Williams and E. R. Holcombe, for respondent.
Action to determine adverse claims to real property in plaintiff's possession. As his title thereto was fully made out through certain tax certificates, it is not necessary for us to discuss his claim of adverse and exclusive possession for the period of more than 20 years. Plaintiff's original entry was made under a tax-deed issued to him by the county auditor in 1866, but he did not rely on this deed in support of his claim of ownership. However, in the year 1874, there was executed and delivered to him a certificate of sale in due form for taxes delinquent in the year 1873, through which, there being no redemption from the sale, the trial court found that the plaintiff had acquired a fee-simple title and the absolute ownership of the land in dispute. It is the validity of this title which we shall proceed to consider.
The appellant's first claim is that the property was not sufficiently or properly described in either delinquent or published list, in the judgment, or in the certificate. It consisted of two tracts of land of five acres each, numbered, respectively, 9 and 16, on a plat which was made and filed by the then owner of 120 acres, one Hoyt, in the year 1852. The surveyor certified that it was a plat of the W. ½ of the N. W. ¼ and the S. E. ¼ of the N. E. ¼ of a certain section, but no name was given to the plat by the owner, as is usually done. From the undisputed testimony it appears that, from the filing of the plat in 1852 to the present time, this platted property was well and generally known and called "Hoyt's Outlots" by all of the county officers, by the real-estate dealers, and by all other persons who had occasion to refer to it. The county surveyor habitually mapped any part of it in this way, and the register of deeds and county abstractor always so designated the lots when making abstracts of title. The lots were taxed and assessed in this way, and several of the lots were platted as such by their owners, without a more definite description. When deeded, the lots were universally described as of "Hoyt's Outlots," being a part of the government subdivisions before mentioned. In all of the tax proceedings herein involved the premises were described as lots 9 and 16 of Hoyt's Outlots, and this was sufficient. It would be difficult to find a case falling more directly within the rule as to a well-known and commonly repeated description or designation laid down, with reference to tax proceedings, in Stewart v. Colter, 31 Minn. 385, (18 N. W. Rep. 98;) Gilfillan v. Hobart, 34 Minn. 67, (24 N. W. Rep. 342;) and Chouteau v. Hunt, 44 Minn. 173, (46 N. W. Rep. 341,) than that at bar.
The judgment itself was in the prescribed form and valid on its face. In the descriptive portion, there appears in the first or lefthand column the names of the owner of each parcel in regular order, and under a proper heading. The second column was headed "Subdivision of Section, Lot, or Block," and underneath this, but separated by a head-line, was the general designation, "Hoyt's Outlots." In the third column, with the heading "Section or Lot," were figures on a line with the names in the first column, among others "9" and "16." Across the second column, and thus reaching from the alleged owner's name to each of these figures, was a dotted line. It would seem to be perfectly plain that the description of lots 9 and 16 and the owner's name fully appeared from this, and that there could have been no doubt in the mind of the man of ordinary intelligence that judgment was...
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