Hall v. Scott County

• Citation: 7 F. 341
• Parties: HALL v. SCOTT COUNTY.
• Decision Date: 04 February 1881
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

7 F. 341

HALL v. SCOTT COUNTY.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Missouri.

February 4, 1881

Robert Harbison, for plaintiff.

Louis Houck and William Hunter, for defendant.

TREAT D.J.

This is an action at law to recover on the alleged covenants by defendant in its deeds to plaintiff's grantors of certain tracts of land, the title to which never was in the defendant. The absence of title was only as to some of the tracts scheduled, and the claim for recovery is as to the proportionate value of said tracts.

Many points have been urged involving the power of the county court to convey such lands in any other than the alleged statutory mode. The lands were swamp and overflowed lands the title to which passed from the United States to the state of Missouri, and from the latter to the defendant. By the terms of the state grant nothing passed to the defendant except what was in Scott county. The general law provided, it is urged, the manner in which the county might sell the same also, the minimum price per acre; which limitations on the county authority, it is averred, were wholly disregarded. How that may be it is not necessary now to determine.

Under the rulings of the supreme court of Missouri, notably in the two cases reported in 23 Mo., (Dickson v. Desere's Adm'r, ^[1]) the covenants of title ran with the land, and damages for the breach are recoverable by the present grantee from the original covenantor, provided the county court had power to make said covenants, and was not restricted to a single conveyance of the county's right title, and interest in the property.

Grants are sometimes to a county for a specified purpose,-- as for the benefit of the public schools,-- and consequently, if the county court could sell and warrant, and a breach of warranty should follow, it might be that the general revenues of the county could be made to answer instead of the specific fund. That question has been often discussed, and it has been held, by the supreme court of Missouri, in accordance with sound principle, that the agents of a county empowered to sell property can sell only the title and interest of the county, however the proceeds of the sale are to be applied.

If there passed into the county treasury, either for general or special uses, the purchase money received for the property, it might seem that the principle on which Wood v. City of Louisiana was decided ought to recover the case. But the distinction between the two cases is clear.

It is unnecessary, however, to pursue such inquiries. It is patent from the terms of the deed, that the parties understood that no tract of land outside the county was to be conveyed, and...