Goodnow v. Moulton

• Decision Date: 17 September 1879
• Citation: 2 N.W. 395,51 Iowa 555
• Parties: EDWARD K. GOODNOW, APPELLANT, v. DAVID MOULTON AND OTHERS, APPELLEES.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

51 Iowa 555

2 N.W. 395

EDWARD K. GOODNOW, APPELLANT,

v.DAVID MOULTON AND OTHERS, APPELLEES.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed September 17, 1879.

Appeal from Webster circuit court.

Action in equity. A decree was entered in the circuit court, dismissing the petition, and the plaintiff appeals.George Crane and John Doud, Jr., for the appellant.

Clark & Conner, for appellees.

SEEVERS, J.

In 1863 the Iowa Homestead Company purchased, and there was conveyed to said company by the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad Company, certain lands described in the petition. Other lands were embraced in the same conveyance, which purported to convey the fee simple title. In 1864, and every year thereafter up to and including 1871, the homestead company paid the taxes levied on said lands, which, during the period aforesaid, were not in the actual occupation of any one. The title of said company failed, as hereafter stated, and this action is brought to recover of the defendant Moulton, the owner of said lands, the taxes so paid; the plaintiff having succeeded to all the rights of said company. An account is asked, and a decree that the amount found due be made a charge on the land. General relief is also asked.

When the taxes were paid it was believed by said company it was the owner of said lands under the act of congress known as the railroad grant. The source of the defendant's title is the act of congress granting lands in aid of the improvement of the Des Moines river.

From 1859, or before that time, up to December, 1872, the title to the land described in the petition was in dispute between parties claiming under said grants. During the greater portion, if not all, of said period the title was being litigated by those under whom the parties claim, or, more correctly speaking, there were actions pending in which the title to other lands than those described in the petition was being litigated.

In December, 1872, it was determined in Homestead Company v. Valley Railroad, 17 Wall. 153, that the parties claiming under the act of congress in aid of the improvement of the Des Moines river owned the legal title to said lands. This decision conclusively and finally determined that the homestead company did not own the lands described in the petition at the time the taxes were paid, but that the defendant Moulton was the owner.

For a more full and complete history of the several acts of congress, the legislation of the state, and the litigation resulting therefrom, see the above cited case, and The Dubuque & Pacific R. Co. v. Litchfield, 23 How. 66.Wolcott v. Des Moines Co. 5 Wall. 581, should also be consulted.

The taxes were paid “on the twenty-eighth day of Februaryin each year, without any request from defendant Moulton, and by mistake as to the ownership of said lands, in good faith, under the belief of ownership.” The lands were assessed to “unknown owners.” The defendant Moulton has never paid or offered to pay any portion of said taxes. No objection is made to the form of the action. As to the questions involved we have to say:

1. It is regarded as well settled by authority that the general rule is, one person cannot make another his debtor by paying the debt of the latter without his request or assent; but it is believed to be equally well settled that a request or assent may be inferred, under some circumstances, as if “one person see another at work in his field, and do not forbid him, it is evidence of assent, and he will be holden to pay the value of the labor. Sometimes the jury may infer a previous request, even contrary to the fact, on the ground of a legal obligation alone.” 2 Greenleaf Ev., § 108.

Where one pays the funeral expenses of the deceased wife of another, the latter being beyond the seas, a previous request will be inferred because of the legal obligation resting on the husband. Jenkins v. Tucker, 1 H. Blk. 90.

Nichol v. Allen, 3 Carrington & Payne, 35, was an action to recover for boarding the defendant's child. There was no evidence of a request or promise to pay, but the defendant had knowledge the child was boarding with the plaintiff, and it was said by Lord Tinderden, C. J., that “there is not only a moral but a legal obligation on the defendant to maintain his child. He knows where she is, and expresses no dissent and does not take her away. There is a legal obligation made out, if it is shown she is maintained in the plaintiff's house and he knows it, and it lies on the defendant to show that she is there against his consent, or that he has refused to maintain her any longer at his expense.”

Where one person is compelled to pay money which another is under a legal obligation to pay, the one so paying may recover of the person legally bound. In such a case a previous request will be inferred. Pownal v. Ferrand, 6 B. & C. 439; Exall v. Partridge, 8 T. R. 308; Bailey v. Bussing, 28 Conn. 455.

If one person, in good faith, because of a statutory obligation resting on him, or because public policy so requires, pays money another is under a legal obligation to pay, a previous request, we think, might well be inferred if he had knowledge of the payment at the time it was made; or, if he did not have knowledge until afterward, and there was a series of payments made from time to time, an assent should be presumed. As the homestead company was not in fact the owner,...