Keyes v. Munroe

• Decision Date: 30 November 1915
• Docket Number: No. 17071.,17071.
• Citation: 180 S.W. 863,266 Mo. 114
• Parties: KEYES et al. v. MUNROE.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

180 S.W. 863

266 Mo. 114

KEYES et al. v. MUNROE.

No. 17071.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

November 30, 1915.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Reynolds County; E. M. Dearing, Judge.

Action by J. R. Keyes and others against George H. Munroe. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded for new trial.

This is an action to determine interest to certain lands situate in Reynolds county. Plaintiffs had judgment vesting title to the whole of the lands in fee in them, and defendant appeals. Pending this appeal defendant departed this life, but since, pursuant to stipulation, Eva W. Munroe, defendant's sole devisee, has been substituted as appellant and the cause revived in her name, it is not deemed necessary to destroy the identity of the case by a change in the style thereof, and this explanation stands in lieu of such change.

The lands involved are the N. E. ¼ and the E. ½ of the N. W. ¼ and the N. W. ¼ of the N. W. ¼ of section 13, in township 33 north, of range 3 west, and situated, as stated, in Reynolds county. Both the petition and the answer are conventional, and in the latter defendant joins with plaintiffs in praying the court to ascertain and determine the title as between the parties litigant. The facts shown in evidence upon the trial are few and meager, and this meagerness has caused much difficulty in reaching a conclusion in the case. The lands were entered by one John Dorsey from the United States. On the 15th of June, 1859, Dorsey conveyed to one E. N. Keyes or to E. N. Reyes, of Cleveland, Ohio. Since the recorded ropy of the deed shows the name as last above set out, about this question of whether the name of Dorsey's grantee is Keyes or Reyes a large part of the controversy turns.

Upon the trial plaintiffs offered a purported copy of the will of Ell. N. Keyes, who resided in his lifetime at Cleveland, Ohio; by the term of which will said Keyes gave his widow, Elizabeth L. Keyes (who afterwards intermarried with one Churchill, alai died pending this suit), one-third of all of his real property in fee, and to his son Frank E. Keyes the residue thereof. Plaintiffs herein are the widow of said: Prank E. Keyes, who died in 1899, and his two daughters, constituting all of his heirs, Mrs. Jane Rodgers Keyes, who is a plaintiff herein, and, as stated, is the widow of Frank E. Keyes, deceased, testified orally in the case, and in substance stated that E. N. Keyes (who plaintiffs contend is the grantee in the conveyance to Dorsey) died in Cleveland, Ohio, about 1810 or 1871; that he had resided there continuously from 1861; but that he was residing in 1859 (the date of the conveyance from Dorsey) at Keyesville, Vt.; that search had been made for deeds or other muniments of title to the land in controversy both among the papers of E. N. Keyes and among the papers of Mrs. Churchill's estate; but that no such papers whatever in any wise having reference to this land were found. The only fact stated by this witness connecting plaintiffs' ancestor in identity with the grantee in the Dorsey deed was the fact (elicited without objection) that Frank E. Keyes had come to some indefinite part of Missouri about 1895 to look for, or look after, lands which had belonged to his father. This witness stated, however, that the name of Reynolds county did not refresh her memory or suggest to her that the land in controversy was located therein, and that no taxes had ever been paid by her husband or any other of the family upon this land. In short, the oral testimony is (and this, though not objected to, was utterly incompetent) that the witness' husband came to some portion of Missouri in 1895 to look for, or look after, some lands, which had, as he averred, belonged to his father. Clearly, the weight of such testimony, even if it were competent, is negligible.

In passing it may be said that plaintiffs offered, over the objections and exceptions of defendant, the index to the deed records of Reynolds county, wherein it appears that entry No. 56, bearing date June 15, 1859, was a deed wherein John Dorsey was grantor and E. N. Keyes was grantee, and that the lands conveyed were those in controversy here. This, in substance, is the whole of plaintiffs' proof.

Defendant offered a sheriff's deed dated May 24, 1882, purporting to convey under a sheriff's sale for taxes all of the interest of John Dorsey and E. N. Keyes to the land in controversy to R. I. January. To the introduction of this sheriff's deed plaintiffs made objection that it passed no title, for the reason that at the time of the tax suit the judgment and sale said E. N. Keyes had been dead for more than ten years. Other conveyances were offered from R. I. January down to defendant herein, but which are not pertinent to the points up for discussion. The land was conceded to be wild, timbered, uncultivated land, and no point is made as to any statute of limitations.

No declarations of law were requested or given on either side.

The points urged upon us for reversal are, in brief: (a) That the judgment is against the evidence and against the law under the evidence and for the wrong patty; (b) that the court erred in admitting incompetent evidence offered by plaintiffs; and (c) that, specifically, the court erred in admitting the index to the deed records to vary the solemn record of the deed as found in the land records of Reynolds county.

R. I. January, of Centerville, for appellant. C. M. Buford, of...