Hansen's Empire Fur Factory v. Teabout

• Decision Date: 20 January 1898
• Citation: 104 Iowa 360,73 N.W. 875
• Parties: HANSEN'S EMPIRE FUR FACTORY v. TEABOUT ET AL. KEITH ET AL. v. TEABOUT ET AL. (JAFFRAY ET AL., INTERVENERS.)
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

104 Iowa 360

73 N.W. 875

HANSEN'S EMPIRE FUR FACTORY

v.TEABOUT ET AL.

KEITH ET AL.

v.TEABOUT ET AL. (JAFFRAY ET AL., INTERVENERS.)

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 20, 1898.

Appeal from district court, O'Brien county; S. M. Ladd, Judge.

The two cases entitled as above, involving the same issues, were tried together in the lower court, and will be disposed of as one in this court. They are suits in equity brought by two judgment creditors of F. Teabout and Teabout & Valleau to subject certain real estate, the title to which is in Angie Valleau, to the payment of these judgments, on the ground that said Valleau held the title in trust for the benefit of Teabout. Valleau denied the alleged trust, and pleaded that at the time of the death of Teabout, which occurred in March, 1888, she was the owner of the real estate, and that she still held the absolute title thereto. E. S. Jaffray & Co., William Young & Co., and Henry Welsh intervened, setting forth in their petitions the fact that they were judgment creditors of Teabout, having recovered their judgments before his death,--Jaffray & Co. in the United States circuit court for the Northern district of Iowa, Young & Co. in the circuit court of O'Brien county, and Welsh in the circuit court of Winneshiek county. They each and all alleged that Valleau held title to the land under and by virtue of an execution sale of the lands in the case of Hemphill, Hamlin & Co. against Frank Teabout et al., held on the 17th day of May, 1882, and that the execution sale and deeds thereunder were and are void for the reason that the land so sold, comprising about 2,600 acres, was sold to one Potts, an attorney for plaintiff in execution, for the nominal sum of $782, whereas it was in truth worth $30,000; that a part of the land so sold was the homestead of Teabout, who then occupied the same with his family; that the sheriff did not cause the said homestead to be marked off, platted, and recorded as by law provided; that he sold the entire real estate en masse, without first offering it in smaller tracts, and without first offering all the other real estate before selling the homestead; that Pitts transferred the certificate of purchase to one Bullis, who took and received from the sheriff a deed to the land; that Bullis was the then attorney for Teabout; that he furnished no part of the money for the purchase of the certificate; and that Bullis thereafter quitclaimed the said real estate to defendant Valleau without any consideration having been paid therefor by her. Interveners further pleaded the death of Teabout, and the appointment of one J. J. Long as his administrator, and further alleged that the personal estate of the deceased was insufficient to pay his debts. They asked that the sheriff's sale and deeds be set aside, that Angie Valleau be held to account for the rent of the real estate, that the property be decreed to be that of Teabout and subject to the interveners' judgments, that they be permitted to redeem from the sale under execution, and that executions issue for the sale thereof. Defendant Angie Valleau answered these petitions, denying the alleged defects in the sheriff's sales and deeds, and denying that she held the title in trust, or that she paid no consideration therefor. She further alleged that after the death of Teabout these interveners filed their claims with his administrator, and that thereafter, it being discovered that the personal assets were insufficient, the administrator brought suit to subject the real estate to the payment of these and other claims, alleging, as one of the grounds therefor, the same matters as are set forth in the interveners' petitions; that this action was tried, resulting in a decree for this defendant; and that such determination was a final adjudication of all the matters complained of by interveners. Defendant further pleaded the 5-year statute of limitations, the 10-year statute, and laches on the part of the interveners. She also pleaded that, as more than 10 years had elapsed since interveners had obtained their judgments, they ceased to be liens upon the land, and that the same could not be enforced against it; that interveners had waived their liens, and could only enforce their claims through the administrator of Teabout. She also pleaded that the district court had no jurisdiction to award execution on the Jaffray and Welsh judgments, and that the court which awarded the judgments alone could do that. She also pleaded a counterclaim, and asked that her title be quieted as against the interveners. In reply interveners denied that they had filed their claims with the administrator before he commenced his suit to subject the lands, denied that said suit was based upon the same grounds as their intervention, and further denied the application of the statutes of limitation, or that they had been guilty of laches. On these issues the cases were tried to the court, resulting in a decree subjecting the lands to the payment of plaintiffs' judgments, and dismissing the petitions of interveners. Interveners, Jaffray & Co., Welsh, and Young & Co., appeal. Affirmed.H. E. Long, for appellants.

DEEMER, C. J.

The trial court found some of the facts which we believe to be established by the evidence, and which we here adopt as a partial basis for this opinion. They are as follows: Frank Teabout, defendant in this action originally, died in the year 1888, intestate, leaving no widow, and leaving defendant Angie Valleau, his only child and heir at law, being the owner of the following described real estate, situated in O'Brien county, Iowa, to wit: The S. E. 1/4 and the N. E. 1/4 of the N. E. 1/4 and the S. W. 1/4 of the N. E. 1/4, all in section 35, and the W. 1/2 of the N. W. 1/4 and the S. E. 1/4 of the N. W. 1/4 and the W. 1/2 of the S. W. 1/4, all in section 36,--all being in township 97 N., of range 40 W., 5th P. M. That on the 1st day of May, 1883, while said Teabout was the owner of said real estate, the plaintiff herein obtained a judgment in the district court of O'Brien county, Iowa, for the sum of $1,005.50, with interest thereon at 6 per cent. per annum from said date, and costs of suit, taxed at $_____. That under and by virtue of an execution issued upon a certain judgment in favor of Hemphill, Hamlin & Co. against said Teabout, recovered in this court on April 28, 1881, for $647 and costs, the sheriff of said O'Brien county, Iowa, levied upon 2,600 acres of real estate, including the real estate hereinbefore described, and certain town lots, and thereafter, on or about June 19, 1882, sold same, all in bulk, without first offering same in smaller tracts, for the full sum of $782.30, to one G. W. Pitts, who thereafter assigned so much of the certificate of purchase to one Bullis as covered and described the real estate in question in this action (including about 960 acres of other land not in controversy herein) and that of Hansen's Empire Fur Factory against same defendants, for the sum of $560.85; the said money for the payment thereof having been furnished by the defendant Angie Valleau, herein, and he having thereafter made to her a quitclaim deed therefor without further consideration. And the court further finds said sheriff's sale and deed were invalid, and conveyed no title to said Bullis or his grantee, Angie Valleau, defendant herein. The court further finds that on August 8 and September 20 and 21, 1883, respectively, defendant Angie Valleau paid to the clerk of this court the full sum of $5,125 to redeem the lands hereinbefore described from sheriff's sale upon execution of a judgment in favor of Field, Lindley & Co. against Frank Teabout, under a foreclosure of mortgage upon said real estate, with other real estate, paramount in lien to any of said judgments upon said lands; and under said redemptions sheriff's deeds were made to said defendant Angie Valleau, which deeds were invalid, and conveyed no title as against this plaintiff. The court further finds that plaintiff's said judgment was a lien upon said real estate junior to the judgments in favor of Field, Lindley & Co. and Hemphill, Hamlin & Co. against said Teabout. The court further finds that the personal estate of said F. Teabout, deceased, is, and has been ever since his death, insufficient to satisfy any of the judgments herein set forth in favor of plaintiff and interveners. On this state of facts Valleau was ordered to pay plaintiff's judgment within 90 days, and that if she did not do so the sheriff's sale and deeds under which she claimed would be set aside, and general execution would issue for the sale of the land to pay plaintiff's judgment, as well as to satisfy the amount Valleau had advanced to procure the sheriff's certificate and to redeem from the foreclosure, and, as we have said, dismissed the petitions of intervention. We are not favored with an argument for appellees, and have no means of knowing upon what theory the court acted in reaching his conclusions. It is apparent, however, that the court found in favor of Valleau on one or more of the defenses interposed by her; and we turn, then, to a consideration of the matters so presented.

And first as to the rights of Welsh: He recovered his judgment in the circuit court of Winneshiek county on the 6th day of September, 1881, and he filed his petition of intervention on October 27, 1893. He did not file his claim with the administrator of Teabout's estate, and therefore must rely solely upon his judgment. We have heretofore held, and it is now the settled rule in this state, that while a judgment against one who has since deceased may be enforced against the real estate upon which it is a lien without filing it as a claim against the estate, yet this must be done while the judgment lien exists. Baldwin v. Tuttle, 23 Iowa, 66;Davis v. Shawhan, 34 Iowa, 91;Boyd v. Collins, 70 Iowa, 296, 30 N. W. 574. In the case of Davis v. Shawhan we held that, if one...