Harmon v. Goggins

• Decision Date: 21 December 1904
• Citation: 101 N.W. 1088,19 S.D. 34
• Parties: HARMON v. GOGGINS et al.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

19 S.D. 34

101 N.W. 1088

HARMON

v.GOGGINS et al.

Supreme Court of South Dakota.

Dec. 21, 1904.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Clark County.

Action by Charles Harmon against John Goggins and another. From a judgment in favor of defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.C. G. Sherwood and F. E. Strawder, for appellant. S. A. Keenan, for respondents.

HANEY, J.

This action was brought to determine adverse claims to certain real property of which the plaintiff and defendant Goggins each claimed to be the owner in fee. The court below decided in favor of the latter, and the former appealed.

A deed from one John W. Martin to the plaintiff, duly executed, acknowledged, and recorded, whereby, in consideration of the sum of $1, the former did “grant, bargain, sell, remise, release, and convey” the premises to the latter, “his heirs and assigns forever,” was offered by the plaintiff and received in evidence. An assignment, duly executed, acknowledged, and recorded, from the Dakota Loan & Trust Company to Elizabeth H. Hanson, of “a certain mortgage bearing date the 1st day of November, A. D., 1887, made and executed by Charles H. Strathman, Jr., single, mortgagor, to the Dakota Loan and Trust Company of Watertown, Dakota, mortgagee, and recorded in the office of the register of deeds in and for the county of Clark and territory of Dakota, in book H of mortgages, on page 270, with all and singular the premises therein mentioned and described,” and an assignment, duly executed, acknowledged, and recorded, from Elizabeth H. Hanson to the plaintiff, describing the same mortgage, were offered in evidence by the plaintiff, to which defendants objected as “incompetent and inadmissible under the pleadings,” which objection was sustained. No other evidence in support of plaintiff's alleged claim of title was received or offered. Defendants introduced a tax deed purporting to convey the premises to defendant Goggins, recorded more than three years before this action was commenced, and testimony tending to prove that Goggins, through tenants, was in actual occupancy of the premises, and had been thus in possession since the tax deed was issued. Certain offers of evidence on the part of the plaintiff, intended to disclose defects in the tax title, were rejected, which, however, need not be considered, in view of the plaintiff's failure to prove either title, or possession from which title might have been presumed.

The mortgage assignments were properly...