Howard v. Landsberg's Comm.

• Decision Date: 12 March 1908
• Citation: 60 S.E. 769,108 Va. 161
• Parties: HOWARD et al. v. LANDSBERG'S COMMITTEE.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

60 S.E. 769

108 Va. 161

HOWARD et al.

v.LANDSBERG'S COMMITTEE.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

March 12, 1908.

1. Limitation of Actions—Action by Former Insane Person—Recurrence of Insanity.

Where after one was adjudged a lunatic and his land was sold in an action by a creditor against his committee, limitations on an action by the lunatic to recover the land commenced to run when he was discharged as restored to sanity, and continued to run notwithstanding a recurrence of insanity nine years later.

[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent Dig. vol. 33, Limitation of Actions, § 414.]

2. Insane Persons — Orders Appointing Committees—Collateral Attack.

Silence or incompleteness of the record of the county court respecting orders appointing Committees of a lunatic will not avail in a collateral attack upon them.

[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 27, Insane Persons, § 55.]

3. Same—Estoppel.

A lunatic's committee, in ejectment to recover land sold in an action against a former committee, cannot question the validity of the order appointing the former committee nor of the sale where, after such appointment and sale and upon a temporary restoration to sanity, the lunatic appeared in the county court, produced a certificate of his restoration to sanity, and upon his motion an order was made that his committee surrender to him such of the estate as was then in his hands.

4. Same.

An order by the county court appointing a committee for a lunatic was an adjudication as to jurisdiction of the court to make the order, and it must be presumed that the record in which the order was entered authorized its entry, and the validity of the order cannot be collaterally impeached, in ejectment by a sub sequent committee to recover land sold in the action against the former committee, for want of notice to the lunatic, though the statute pro viding for such proceedings does not require notice to the lunatic.

[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 27, Insane Persons, § 55.]

5. Ejectment — Evidence — Commissioner's Deed.

A commissioner's deed recited that the sale was made under a decree of the circuit court, giving the date, in a specified chancery cause; that the commissioner was appointed to make the sale; that the sale was made after advertisement as directed by the degree; that the grantee became the purchaser at a price stated, etc.; that the sale was duly reported to the circuit court, which on a date stated confirmed it; that it was ordered on a date given that the grantee had paid the purchase price, and that the commissioner was appointed to convey the land by warranty deed to the grantee. Then followed the conveyance. Held, that the deed sufficiently shows that the sale was regularly made within Code 1887, § 3333a [Va. Code 1904, p. 1760]; and, upon the deed being admitted in evidence in ejectment against the grantee's successors, the burden rested on plaintiff to overcome the presumption attaching to it under the statute, and, no evidence being offered for that purpose, plaintiff's claim failed.

[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 17, Ejectment, §§ 238-245.]

6. Insane Persons—Suits Against—Proper Parties.

A lunatic is not a necessary party to a suit to sell his property for a debt; his committee being the proper party defendant.

[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 27, Insane persons, §§ 161, 162.]

7. Same — Guardian Ad Litem — Necessity for Appointment.

In a proceeding affecting an insane person's property rights, it is unnecessary to appoint a guardian ad litem, where there is a committee, unless the committee's and the insane person's interests conflict.

[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 27, Insane Persons, §§ 16.3-165.]

Error to Corporation Court of Newport News.

Ejectment by Julius Landsberg's committee against Lucy M. Howard and another. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants bring error. Reversed.

S. Gordon dimming, for plaintiffs in error.

Ashby & Read, for defendant in error.

CARDWELL, J. On the 17th day of December, 1886, upon the application of his wife, the county court of Elizabeth Citycounty appointed P. W. Phillips as committee of Julius Landsberg, who had theretofore been adjudged a lunatic and committed to the Eastern Lunatic Asylum, but revoked the powers of Phillips as committee by an order entered February 1, 1887, and committed the estate of the lunatic to Andrew Williams, sheriff of the county of Elizabeth City. Subsequent to the entry of this last-mentioned order, a chancery suit was brought in the circuit court of Warwick county by Wm. S. Howard against Andrew Williams, sheriff, and as such committee of Julius Landsberg, praying a sale of a certain house and lot in Newport News, the property of the lunatic, to satisfy a debt due by him to the plaintiff. To that suit Julius Landsberg was not eo nomini made a party.

The sale asked for was decreed and made by Thomas Tabb, special commissioner of the court for the purpose, and the property bought by Wm. S. Howard, who received a deed to the lot from Tabb, commissioner, dated September 25, 1888, and Howard took possession of the property under the deed, and continued in possession thereof until his death in 1892, and thereafter, up to a few months before the trial of this suit, his widow and sole heir, plaintiffs in error, received through the hands of the officers of the court appointed in a creditors' suit to settle the estate of said Wm. S. Howard, deceased, the rents accrued from the property; so that the property had been in the open, notorious, and adverse possession of the decedent, Howard, his widow and sole heir at law, respectively, and the officers of the court, from September, 1888, and taxes thereon had been regularly paid by the Howards or their representatives to the time of the institution of this suit in September, 1905.

Julius Landsberg was discharged from the asylum as restored to sanity in March, 1890, and remained at large, engaging in such employment as he saw fit to undertake, including the duties of a United States postmaster, until July, 1899, when he was again committed to the asylum.

On May 19, 1890, Landsberg appeared in the county court of Elizabeth City county, produced the certificate of the superintendent of the asylum that he was restored to sanity, and upon his motion an order was made that his committee surrender to him such estate as was then in the committee's hands. Therefore, as plaintiffs in error contend, the statute of limitations then began to run in favor of Howard, the grantee in the Tabb commissioner deed, from March, 1890, and continued to run, notwithstanding the recurrence of Landsberg's insanity in 1899.

That Landsberg had a good and fee-simple title to the lot in question is not controverted; and this action in ejectment was brought by his present committee, appointed upon Landsberg being recommitted to the asylum in 1899, against plaintiffs in error to recover possession of the lot, defendant in error (plaintiff below) claiming under a deed to Landsberg in 1884 from the Old Dominion Land Company, while plaintiffs in error (defendants below) claim under the deed from Tabb, commissioner, to Wm. S. Howard in 1888; and, the case having been submitted to the trial court without the intervention of a jury, its judgment was for the defendant in error.

The first error assigned is to the ruling of the trial court permitting the plaintiff to amend his declaration; but we deem it only necessary to say, with respect to this assignment, that in the opinion of this court the ruling was not error. Nor do we, for the reasons hereinafter appearing, deem it necessary to consider the question whether or not plaintiffs in error have been in the "actual or constructive" possession of the lot of land in controversy long enough to bar defendant in error in this action.

The contention of defendant in error which prevailed in the trial court is that the orders of the county court of Elizabeth City county appointing P. W. Phillips and afterwards Andrew Williams, sheriff, committees of Julius Landsberg, are null and void because made without notice to Landsberg, and therefore the proceedings in the chancery suit against Andrew Williams, sheriff, and as such committee of Landsberg, could not operate to divest Landsberg of his property, and invest plaintiffs in error with the title thereto.

We are not to be understood by anything said in this opinion as deciding whether or not a lunatic must have notice before a valid order can be made by a court, exercising the functions of a court of general jurisdiction, appointing a committee of his estate, as that question is not necessarily to be decided in this case. The first question for our determination is whether or not the orders of the county court of Elizabeth City county called in question can be assailed collaterally and declared void, as has in effect been done by the judgment complained of.

That our late county courts, with respect to purely judicial powers, were courts of general jurisdiction, and their judgments presumed to be right and cannot be impeached in a collateral proceeding, however erroneous they may be, has again and again been declared by this court; one of the latest expressions of the court being in the well-considered opinion by Buchanan, J., in Ches., etc., Ry. Co. v. Washington, etc., R. Co., 99 Va. 715, 40 S. E. 20.

In that case the opinion in the case of Sargeant v. State Bank, 12 How. (U. S.) 371, 13 L. Ed. 1028, is quoted from, wherein it was said: "It is a principle well settled, too, in judicial proceedings, that whatever may be the powers of a Supreme Court, in the exercise of regular appellate jurisdiction, to examine the acts of an inferior court, the proceedings of a court of general and compe-tent jurisdiction cannot be properly impeached and re-examined collaterally by a distinct tribunal, one not sitting in the exercise of appellate power. To permit the converse of...