Jackson v. Glos

• Decision Date: 05 April 1911
• Parties: JACKSON v. GLOS et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

249 Ill. 388

94 N.E. 502

JACKSON

v.GLOS et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 25, 1911.

Rehearing Denied April 5, 1911.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; John Gibbons, Judge.

Application by Julia N. Jackson to register a land title. From a decree setting aside certain tax deeds, Jacob Glos and another appeal. Affirmed.

John R. O'Connor, for appellants.

Victor M. Harding, for appellee.

CARTWRIGHT, J.

The circuit court of Cook county entered a decree in this cause setting aside certain tax deeds under which the appellants claimed, which were mentioned in the application of the appellee for registration of title in fee simple in her to a lot in Chicago and ordered the registrar of titles to register the title of the appellee as claimed. That decree was reversed for a failure to prove the averment of the application that the lot was unoccupied, and because the court did not require the appellee to reimburse the holder of one tax deed, and the cause was remanded to the circuit court. Jackson v. Glos, 243 Ill. 280, 90 N. E. 717. The cause was reinstated in the circuit court, and was again referred to an examiner of titles for the purpose of taking further evidence. The same abstracts and evidence offered on the previous reference were again offered, and the appellee introduced evidence showing that the lot was unoccupied, and Jacob Glos, one of the appellants, offered evidence to sustain his tax title. When the abstracts were offered in evidence on the first reference 60 objections to them were interposed, and, when they were again offered, the same objections were renewed with 62 additional objections. All of the objections were overruled, and the abstracts were received in evidence. The examiner made a report that the appellee was entitled to registration of title in herself in fee simple, and that the tax deeds were void, and the appellants each severally filed 56 objections to the report. All of the objections were overruled by the examiner, and the cause was heard upon the same as exceptions to the report. The court overruled the exceptions and entered a decree setting aside the tax deeds upon condition that the appellee should pay to the appellants Jacob Glos and Emma Glos certain sums of money found due them and ordered the registrar of titles to register the title of the appellee. The appellants severally prayed appeals from that decree, and perfected the same.

The appellee claimed title in fee simple by a connected chain of conveyances beginning with a grant by the United States to the state of Illinois for canal purposes, and followed by conveyances, proceedings in court, plats, powers of attorney, and other papers relating to the transfer of title, and the evidence of her title consisted of a series of abstracts upon which these documents were noted. Among the multitudinous objections to the abstracts when they were offered on the first reference and renewed when they were offered on the second reference were that the provisions of the land title act (Hurd's Rev. St. 1909, c. 30, § 61) for the use of abstracts as evidence had not been complied with in various particulars, and that the evidence was insufficient to establish the fact that they were made in the ordinary course of business by makers of abstracts. The objections were overruled and the abstracts admitted in evidence, and the examiner was sustained by the court in passing on the exceptions. There was no evidencethat three of the abstracts were made in the ordinary course of business. The only evidence on that subject was the testimony of a witness who knew the signatures attached to the abstracts, and that they were the signatures of a firm and a corporation engaged in making abstracts. The witness gave an opinion that the abstracts were made in the ordinary course of business, but that opinion was based upon nothing but looking at the abstracts, which looked like abstracts turned out by abstract makers. The examiner or the court, or any one else, could determine just as well as the witness whether the abstracts were made in the ordinary course of business from their appearance. To hold that abstracts were made in the ordinary course of business because they looked as though they were was leaving the abstracts to prove themselves. Waugh v. Glos, 246 Ill. 604, 92 N. E. 974. It has never been considered that books of account admissible in evidence when proved to have been made in the ordinary course of business can be admitted without proof of the fact. House v. Beak, 141 Ill. 290, 30 N. E. 1065,33 Am. St. Rep. 307.

But, while the objection was made on each reference and was included in the exceptions, it was not made a ground for asking a reversal on the former appeal. Of the numerous assignments of error those which now appear to be relied upon and which are elaborated in the argument are: First, that the section of the land title act making abstracts competent evidence is void because in conflict with ...