Long v. Wagoner

• Decision Date: 31 October 1870
• Citation: 47 Mo. 178
• Parties: WILLIAM LONG, Defendant in Error, v. JAMES WAGONER et al., Plaintiffs in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

47 Mo. 178

WILLIAM LONG, Defendant in Error,

v.JAMES WAGONER et al., Plaintiffs in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1870.

Error to Second District Court.

Conger & Reynolds, for plaintiffs in error, cited Davis v. Davis, 8 Mo. 56; 5 Am. Law Reg., N. S., 142; 1 Stark. Ev., § 652; Boardman v. Reed's Lessee, 6 Pet. 345; Dell v. Dawson, 32 Mo. 87; Hardy v. Mathews, 38 Mo. 121; Campbell v. Johnson, 44 Mo. 250; Clemens v. Rannells et al., 34 Mo. 579; Speck v. Wohlien, 22 Mo. 315; Moreau v. Detchemendy, 18 Mo. 522.

Van Alen, with whom were Perryman & Dinning and Wingo & Relfe, for defendant in error.

The omission of not stating the county in the deed was not such an ambiguity as would defeat the title. (Hart v. Rector et al., 13 Mo. 497; Evans v. Green, 21 Mo. 170; 44 Mo. 185; 43 Mo. 13; 1 Greenl. Ev. 6.)

CURRIER, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

Trespass quare clausum. Thomas R. Livingston, in his lifetime, acquired under a patent from the United States the title to forty acres of land situated in Washington county, Missouri, which were described in the patent as follows: “The southeast fourth of the northeast fourth of section 24, township 39, range 1 east, in the district of lands subject to sale at St. Louis, Missouri.” Livingston subsequently died, and his administratrix, under an order of the County Court of said Washington county, sold and conveyed to the plaintiff forty acres of land by the following description, viz: “The southeast fourth of the northeast fourth of section 24, township 39, range 1 east.” This description, as far as it goes, is identical with that in the patent. It omits, however, to state the county or land district in which the premises were situated. Otherwise the two descriptions are the same. The first is admitted to be good, while the second is claimed to be bad as not showing the State in which the land was located. The deed is therefore claimed to be ambiguous upon its face as regards the subject of the grant. This conclusion is deduced from the fact that, under the United States system of land surveys, the description in the deed to the plaintiff would apply to land in other States as well as to the land in question. On this circumstance rests the claim that the deed is fatally ambiguous. If the deed shows the land to be in this State, the supposed ambiguity disappears, for it is not pretended that there is any other parcel of land in Missouri that at all answers to that described in said deed. Substantially, therefore, the question is raised whether that deed sufficiently identifies the land in question as being located within the limits of the State of Missouri; for if within those limits at all, then it is in Washington county, and that described in the plaintiff's petition.

The object of a description in a deed is to define what the parties intended, the one to convey and the other to receive, by the conveyance. That intention is to be deduced from the instrument of conveyance in the same manner as in the case of any other contract. (3 Washb. Real Prop., 3d ed., 333.)

As collected from the deed as a whole, what, then, did the parties intend, the one to convey and the other to receive? It does not admit of doubt that the parties believed themselves to be contracting in relation to forty acres of...