Kinports v. Rawson
| Decision Date | 21 March 1891 |
| Citation | 15 S.E. 66,36 W.Va. 237 |
| Parties | KINPORTS et al. v. RAWSON et al. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Submitted February 9, 1892.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. A purchaser of land, having applied for and obtained an injunction in a circuit court restraining the trustee from selling on account of an alleged cloud upon the title, and this court having on appeal reversed the circuit court, and decided that the alleged cloud and defect did not constitute sufficient ground for an injunction and dismissed the bill the plaintiff cannot bring a second and precisely similar suit against the same parties for the same purpose and cause of action; and on a plea of res judicata the plea was properly sustained.
2. When a purchaser of land enjoins the sale under a deed of trust securing the deferred purchase money, and the circuit court upon a plea of res judicata sustains the plea and dissolves the injunction, that court may either dismiss the bill entirely or it may order the sale to be made under its own supervision by the trustee, or by special commissioners appointed for the purpose.
Appeal from circuit court of Kanawha county; F. A. GUTHRIE, Judge.
Suit by Porter Kinports and others against William L. Rawson and others to enjoin the sale of certain land. From the decree defendants H. A. Holt and A. F. Mathews appeal. Modified.
Campbell Marcum & Holt and J. F. Brown, for appellants, cited in support of the proposition that courts of equity will not try title to land: Stuart's Heirs v. Coalter, 4 Rand (Va.) 74; Lange v. Jones, 5 Leigh, 192; Carrington v. Otis, 4 Grat. 235; Graves v Ewart, (Mo. Sup. 1889,) 11 S.W. 971; Davis v. Sloan, 95 Mo. 552, 5 S.W. 702; Carter v. Woolfork, (Md.) 17 A. Rep. 1041; Polk v. Pendleton, 31 Md. 124; Johnson v. Huling, 127 Ill. 14, 18 N.E. 786; Sloan v. Sloan, (Fla.) 5 So. Rep. 603; Betts v. Nichols, 84 Ala. 278, 4 So. Rep. 195; Pettus v. Glover, 68 Ala. 417; Smith v. Cockrell, 66 Ala. 64; Grigg v. Swindall, 67 Ala, 187, Ely v. Railroad Co., (Ariz.) 19 P. 6; Astiazaran v. Mining Co., (Ariz.) 20 P. 189; Frost v. Spitley, 121 U.S. 552, 7 S.Ct. 1129; Ward v. Chamberlain, 2 Black, 430; Orton v. Smith, 18 How. 263; Page v. Montgomery, 46 Mich. 51, 8 N.W. 582; Lawrence v. Zimpleman, 37 Ark. 643; Daniel v. Stewart, 55 Ala. 278.
LUCAS, P.
Kinports executed a deed of trust upon real property conveyed to him by W. L. Rawson, to A. C. Snyder, trustee, to secure the deferred purchase money. In July, 1885, the trustee advertised the property embraced in the deed of trust, including one tract of 1,632 acres. Thereupon Kinports and his vendee, the St. Lawrence Boom & Manufacturing Company, enjoined the sale upon the ground that Holt and Mathews had an adverse claim, under which they were in possession. Rawson, Holt, and Mathews, and Snyder, the trustee, were made defendants. The circuit court refused to dissolve the injunction, and directed the St. Lawrence Boom & Manufacturing Company to institute an action of ejectment against Holt and Mathews within a given time, under penalty of having the injunction dissolved. Such an action was instituted, and is still pending. Upon an appeal to this court the injunction was dissolved and the bill dismissed. After this dismission of the bill by this court, and after the institution of said action of ejectment, the same plaintiffs applied for and obtained a second injunction against the same defendants, for the same purpose, and involving the same subject-matter. The defendants demurred to the second bill, but the demurrer was overruled. All of the defendants then answered, and insisted upon the plea of res ajudicata. Rawson then filed what he called a "cross bill," but what in point of fact was nothing more than a supplemental and amended answer, in which he set out at large and in detail the defects in the title which Holt and Mathews had set up in their answer. To this amended answer, treating it as a cross bill, Holt and Mathews filed an answer. The latter defendants (Holt and Mathews) likewise submitted to the court the following motions: A motion that the plaintiffs be required to elect between this suit and the action in ejectment; a motion for a jury to try the issue of title upon the cross bill and answer; a motion to refer the cross bill and answer to a commissioner to take proofs and report; a motion for an order of survey in the cause for the purpose of locating the respective claims of the parties to the controversy. All these motions were denied. A final decree was entered on the 10th day of July, 1889. The injunction was dissolved, and it was further ordered that, unless Porter Kinports should within 60 days pay the balance of the purchase money secured by the deed of trust, amounting to $7,759, special commissioners, who were appointed for the purpose, should sell the land, upon the usual terms, etc. From this decree Mathews and Holt have appealed.
The circuit court rested its decision expressly upon the ground that the whole matter was res judicata by the former adjudication of this court, reported 29 W.Va. 487, 2 S.E. 85. This court has twice, very recently, had occasion to decide that a matter once adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction cannot be reopened or relitigated by and between the same parties. In the case of Gallaher v. City of Moundsville, 12 S.E. 859, (decided at the last term,) it was held that, where a suit had been brought to impeach the validity of bonds issued by a municipal corporation before they were put upon the market, and a decision reached in the circuit court favorable to their validity, no further suit could be brought or maintained by the same parties (no matter what particular form it might take) to test the validity of the bonds, so long as the former decision and decree remained in full force, unreversed, and unappealed from. In the case of Barrett v. McAllister, 12 S.E. 1106, (decided during the present term of this court,) it was held, where a defendant, upon a hearing in the circuit court, had waived the statute of frauds, and on appeal to this Court the case was sent back, and the decree below affirmed that the defendant could not make a new case by filing and relying upon a plea of the statute of frauds and perjuries. These cases only reaffirm and reassert the doctrine of res judicata, as so often held and laid down by this court. Corrothers v. Sargent, 20 W.Va. 351; Tracey v. Shumate, 22 W.Va. 475; McCoy v. McCoy, 29 W.Va. 794, 2 S.E. 809; Mason v. Bridge Co., 20 W.Va. 223. It would appear to be perfectly plain that a purchaser of land, who has applied for and obtained an injunction in the circuit court, restraining the trustee from selling on account of an alleged cloud upon the title, after he has been heard upon an appeal to this court, and it has been decided that the alleged cloud and defect as set out in the bill were not sufficient grounds for an injunction, and the bill has been dismissed, is estopped from bringing a similar suit against the same parties for the same purpose and cause of action. It is true that the appeal here is prosecuted, not by the plaintiff, but by his codefendants, Holt and Mathews, the holders of the alleged adverse claim, who, it is said, are now in possession of the land, and who complain that their own title to real estate has been settled and adversely adjudicated by a court of chancery, and not by a jury, and that they have thus been disseised of their freehold, without the lawful judgment of their peers. It will be observed that the former suit was instituted by a plaintiff who held only an equitable title, and could not by any possibility pursue his remedy in a court of law, because the legal title was outstanding in a trustee, who, so far from co-operating with the plaintiff, was bent on selling the property, irrespective of any supposed cloud. The bill, therefore, was by a plaintiff whose right to relieve his land of a cloud, if such existed, was undoubted. Pom. Eq. Jur. § 1399, and notes. The present appellants were made defendants, and were at liberty to avail themselves of every defense to which they have resorted in the present case. If they failed to do so at that time, they certainly cannot do so in a second suit, brought to reopen all the questions formerly decided. They could in that case have answered the bill as they have done in the present case, set out and...
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