Jahren v. Butler

• Decision Date: 05 March 1915
• Docket Number: No. 1697.,1697.
• Citation: 147 P. 280,20 N.M. 119
• Parties: JAHRENv.BUTLER ET AL.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

20 N.M. 119

147 P. 280

JAHREN

v.BUTLER ET AL.

No. 1697.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

March 5, 1915.

Syllabus by the Court.

A judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, upon the merits of a controversy, is conclusive between the parties and those in privity with them, upon every question of fact directly in issue, determined in the action.

Appeal from District Court, Mora County; D. J. Leahy, Judge.

Action by A. O. Jahren against Paul Butler and others. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

A judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, upon the merits of a controversy, is conclusive between the parties and those in privity with them, upon every question of fact directly in issue, determined in the action.

On May 16, 1898, one George Chavez, the father of the appellants, commenced a suit in the district court of Mora county against one Aaron Hollenbeck and his wife, seeking an injunction restraining Hollenbeck from interfering with certain lands in Mora county, to which Chavez then claimed title, and of which he then claimed to be in possession. Hollenbeck in a cross-complaint, filed in this action referred to, set up that the land in question belonged to him, and was at that time in his possession, and prayed that an injunction issue restraining Chavez from interfering with him in his ownership and possession of the land.

On May 9, 1901, a decree was entered in that cause, wherein the court found that Hollenbeck was entitled to the writ of injunction prayed for by him, which was directed to be issued. After the entry of the final decree in the cause instituted in 1898, the McAllister Springs Company acquired the title of Hollenbeck, and subsequently instituted contempt proceedings against Chavez, upon the ground that he had violated the injunction directed to be issued under the decree aforesaid, and on December 5, 1901, the district court entered a new decree, reaffirming the former one, but somewhat amplifying and construing the findings of the first decree. Among other things the court found that Chavez had been guilty of contempt in the violation of the former injunction order, through interfering with the possession of the lands, and trespassing thereupon, and, by reason of the fact that Chavez claimed that he did not understand the injunction order of the court, he was granted 90 days within which to make further proof as to his title to the lands in question. Chavez, however, did not avail himself of this opportunity. Thereafter one A. O. Jahren acquired the title to the McAllister Springs Company, and on September 29, 1909, commenced the present proceedings in the district court of Mora county, which is a suit against numerous individuals, including George Chavez, herein referred to, who died after the institution of this action; the cause being revived against his sons, Epifanio and Porfirio Chavez, the appellants herein. The action is in the ordinary form of an action to quiet title, and the answer of these two defendants is a denial of plaintiff's title and an assertion of title in themselves to certain small tracts of land within the exterior boundaries of the larger tract claimed by Jahren and described in his complaint. This title is claimed by them by inheritance from their father; they alleging adverse possession in him, and pleading no other title than that acquired by adverse possession. They asked that their title be quieted as against plaintiff.

The plaintiff, Jahren, answering the cross-complaint of appellants, after denying its allegations, further pleaded the decrees hereinbefore referred to in the former proceeding between Hollenbeck and Chavez as a bar to the claim of title on the part of the defendants, appellants here.

In replying to this answer, the defendants attacked the legal effect of the decrees referred to, and alleged that the real estate involved in the present proceeding was not the same as that concerned in the former proceeding between Hollenbeck and their father, and further pleaded that the former decrees are of no effect as a bar to their present claim because of the fact that they had been rendered more than seven years prior to the commencement of this action. And it is this last contention that is principally relied upon in this appeal.

By stipulation the cause was set down for hearing on the former adjudication on November 17, 1913, and decree was rendered in the cause in favor of the plaintiff, appellee herein.

By the seventh finding, the court determined that the land, title to which was adjudicated in the case of Chavez against Hollenbeck, was the same land claimed by the defendants in this case, and described in their cross-complaint; all of it being situate within the exterior boundaries of the land which was adjudicated to Hollenbeck in the former decree.

By the fifth and eighth findings, the court also found that the parties to the present proceeding were in privity with the parties to the former one; the court further finding that the defendants in the present proceeding were estopped by the decrees of 1901 from questioning the title of plaintiff, and entered a decree accordingly. From...