Hoffman v. Beard

• Decision Date: 25 October 1870
• Citation: 22 Mich. 59
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: John M. Hoffman and Thomas S. Skinner v. John Beard and James Beard

22 Mich. 59

John M. Hoffman and Thomas S. Skinner v. John Beard and James Beard

Supreme Court of Michigan

October 25, 1870

Heard July 9, 1870

Appeal in chancery from St. Clair circuit.

The bill in this cause was filed by John M. Hoffman and Thomas S Skinner, in the circuit court for the county of St. Clair, in chancery, against John Beard, James Beard and William H White, for a partition of premises, alleged in the bill to have been owned in the year 1825 by John Biddle, Oliver W Miller, Robert Smart and Thomas Scott. The bill further alleges that two of the defendants, John and James Beard claim to own three undivided fourths of said premises; that the defendant White claims an interest therein; that Thomas Scott, the owner of the other undivided fourth, died in 1854; that his administrator, by virtue of authority granted by the probate court, sold the interest of Scott to the complainants, on the 17th day of June, 1865, which sale was duly confirmed. The bill further states that the defendants claim some right and title to the land under a sale of the same for unpaid taxes, which sale the complainants allege to be illegal and void.

The defendants, John and James Beard, answer and admit the original ownership of the land as stated in the bill; they deny that Scott was seized of an undivided fourth of the land at the time of his death; they claim to own the whole of it in fee; they deny the regularity of the proceedings in the probate court; they admit the purchase of an undivided fourth at sales for unpaid taxes, and allege the sales to be legal and valid.

A replication was filed and proofs taken, and upon the hearing upon pleadings and proofs the bill was dismissed. The complainants appeal to this court.

Decree of court dismissing the bill affirmed, with costs.

D. C. Holbrook and Atkinson Bros., for complainants.

Mitchell & Farrand, for defendants.

Christiancy, J. Graves and Cooley, JJ., Campbell, Ch. J. concurred.

OPINION

Christiancy J.:

This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court for the county of St. Clair, in chancery.

The bill is in form mainly a bill for the partition of certain lands in the county of St. Clair, of which complainants claim to own the undivided fourth. They set forth their title substantially as follows: In 1825 John Biddle, Oliver W. Miller, Robert Smart and Thomas Scott became owners in fee of the premises. Afterwards, by several conveyances, the title of all the parties, except Scott, came to be vested in the defendants. In 1854 Thomas Scott died intestate, not having conveyed his one-fourth, and the bill alleges that Joseph E. Bigelow, of the county of Wayne (where Scott resided at his death), was appointed administrator on his estate; that in June, 1865, said administrator, under a license from the probate court of Wayne county, in pursuance of due notice, etc., sold and conveyed said one-fourth to complainants.

After thus setting forth their own title, complainants allege, upon information and belief, that defendants claim some right in said quarter interest under certain tax sales for delinquent taxes for the years 1840, 1841, 1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1848, 1850, 1851 and 1853; but that during the whole of said years, and ever since, the co-tenants and owners of the other three-fourths, and others claiming an interest therein, were in possession of the whole of said lands, and had cut large quantities of pine trees thereon and converted the same to their own use, and pretended to own the whole of said lands. Complainants then allege the invalidity of said tax sales for reasons which they specify, for non-compliance with various provisions of the statute; and they pray for a partition according to the rights of the respective parties, and, if the lands cannot be divided, that they may be sold.

The defendants answer, admitting the ownership of Miller, Smart, Biddle and Scott in 1825, but denying that Scott, at the time of his death, was the owner of the one-fourth. They deny all knowledge of the death of Scott or the appointment of the administrator; admit that he assumed to act as such, but allege that the lands were not embraced in the inventory originally made by him; allege, upon information and belief, that Bigelow, after his pretended appointment, abandoned the administration, and that nothing was done by him until near ten years; but allege that after the debts against the estate were barred by the statute of limitations, complainants, having, as they supposed, found some defect in the title of the defendants, induced the administrator to resume the administration, under the pretense of paying debts, and to procure a license and make a pretended sale to complainants. They deny the existence of any debts; that any legal license was granted for the sale, and the regularity of the proceedings and sale; claim to have been in the exclusive possession of the whole land, claiming title for twenty years, and set up and insist upon their own title under the tax sales, and deny the co-tenancy of the complainants.

It will be thus seen that the whole contest, as disclosed by the pleadings, is upon the legal title to the lands, and not upon any question of the necessity, propriety, or mode of partition, nor upon any equity connected with either the title or the partition; that complainants are out of possession, and the defendants in, claiming the whole adversely; that complainants' title, if good at all, would enable them to maintain ejectment without the aid of a court of equity. All the questions, arising upon the titles set up on both sides, are peculiarly fit and appropriate for trial at law in an action of ejectment, and no obstacle exists to such a trial.

Such is the case as presented by the bill and answer. But it is unnecessary to determine whether the question of the right to maintain such a bill can properly be raised upon the pleadings alone, as one strictly of jurisdiction, as some of the decisions would seem to indicate; or whether the court, notwithstanding the denial of complainants' title, are to look into the evidence and sustain the bill, if the complainants' legal title is so clear as to leave no serious question, as seems to be inferable from some of the cases; since it appears by the evidence in this case, more clearly than from the pleadings, that the whole controversy between the parties, and every question connected with it, relate exclusively to the legal title of complainants, which is denied, and the legal title asserted by the defendants, without a single feature requiring the aid of a court of equity, and that there is no obstacle to the trial of the title at law. It shows also that complainants have never been in possession, and strongly tends to show a disseizin of Scott (under whom complainants claim), nearly, if not more than, twenty years prior to the filing of the bill, by the defendants and those under whom they claim, and an adverse possession and claim of title of the whole during that time; that complainants' alleged title, purely legal in its character, is contested in good faith, and that many important questions, both of law and fact, are raised touching the appointment of the administrator, and the regularity and validity of the proceedings for the sale, which are peculiarly appropriate for trial at law. And, judging from the pleadings and proofs, the main purpose of the bill would seem to be, rather to try the legal title than to obtain a partition, as no question whatever is raised in the case except what grows out of the alleged want of title in complainants.

Under our statutes, which have provided an action of ejectment for the trial of the legal title and the obtaining of possession when wrongfully withheld, whether of the whole or an undivided portion, and for a bill in chancery for the partition of lands held by tenants in common and joint tenants, it certainly cannot be claimed that these were intended as elective remedies, applicable generally to the same state of facts, and to be adopted by parties at their option. And I can see little more reason to suppose the legislature intended the bill for partition as a remedy for the recovery of the possession of land upon a purely legal title, in a case entirely appropriate for ejectment, than that ejectment might be substituted for partition, especially as the defendant in ejectment is entitled to two trials before a jury as matter of right, and to a third if the court think justice will be thereby promoted; while in the partition suit, where he has no right to demand a jury at all, a single trial is to be final and conclusive, and the privilege of several jury trials might be thus taken away in all cases where an undivided portion only is claimed.

The special province of a bill for partition is to sever the joint possession, so that each may enjoy his share in severalty, and not to try legal titles. The title of the parties may, in one sense and to some extent, be said to come in question in all cases of partition by bill, but it is rather incidentally and formally. The usual course is to have a reference to a master or commissioner to ascertain and report upon the title, a mode obviously inadequate to a full and fair trial of a contested legal title, and only properly applicable where there is no real contest upon it.

If the title, though of a legal character, be undisputed, or perhaps, though denied, if it appear to be so clear and incontestable as to admit of no reasonable doubt, and the court can see that a trial at law would be a mere formality the bill will be maintained. If the title be an equitable one, or partly equitable and partly legal (Overton v. Woolfolk, 36 Ky. 371, 6 Dana 371), the court of equity may very properly try the titles, and...