Missouri Pac. Ry. Co. v. Maffit

• Decision Date: 16 January 1888
• Citation: 94 Mo. 56,6 S.W. 600
• Parties: MISSOURI PAC. RY. CO. v. MAFFIT.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

6 S.W. 600

94 Mo. 56

MISSOURI PAC. RY. CO. v. MAFFIT.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January 16, 1888.

1. DEED — DESCRIPTION — SUFFICIENCY — APPURTENANCES.

A deed by a railroad company conveyed "all right, title, interest, and estate of the grantor in all and singular the entire line of the P. R. R., * * * together with all and singular the hereditaments and appurtenances thereunto belonging," etc. Held that, while such description did not set out specifically a lot of ground contiguous to the line of way of the grantor and belonging to it, the word "appurtenant," construed in connection with the nature and subject of the thing granted, was sufficient to identify and pass title to such tract.

2. VENDOR AND VENDEE — RIGHTS OF BONA FIDE PURCHASERS.

Equities existing between original parties to a deed are not available as defenses against an innocent purchaser, for value, without notice of such equities.

3. LIMITATION OF ACTIONS — ADVERSE POSSESSION — WHAT CONSTITUTES.

Defendant had been for the statutory period of limitation exercising acts of ownorship and possession of parts of a certain strip of land, the title to which was in plaintiff. The evidence showed that for the same period plaintiff had been in actual, continuous possession and use of other parts of such strip. Held, that such possession by defendant was no defense to plaintiff's action of ejectment.¹

Error to circuit court, Johnson county; NOAH M. GIVAN, Judge.

Cockrell & Suddath, for plaintiff in error. T. J. Portis, for defendant in error.

RAY, J.

This is an action of ejectment, the petition being in the usual form. In 1869 Samuel Graham and wife and Elhanan Roop and wife executed and acknowledged and filed for record, with the recorder of deeds for Johnson county, Missouri, a plat of the town of Centerview in which occurred the language following, to-wit: "The land being one hundred feet wide on the south side and one hundred and fifty feet on the north side of the railroad tract (or track) being hereby given and donated to the railroad." The answer and reply show, and it was also admitted and stipulated at the trial, that the small parcel in controversy and described in the petition is included in the above-mentioned strip so given and donated to the railroad company. The plat aforesaid, or copy thereof, and a deed from the said railroad company, to-wit, the Pacific Railroad of Missouri, by Seymour D. Thompson, master in chancery, to James Baker, and a deed from said Baker to plaintiffs, constituted the chain of title offered and read in evidence by plaintiff. The defendant, Maffit, at date of suit was in possession, under a lease from said Elhanan Roop, one of the said makers of said town plat, and former owner of this portion of said tract. His answer is a general denial of the petition, except as to the allegations of possession of the premises by defendant and the incorporation of plaintiff, which are admitted; second, a plea of the statute of limitations of 10 years; and, third, an equitable defense, in substance, that at the time said Roop and Graham were preparing said plat, one Powell, land commissioner and assistant engineer of the railroad company, informed him that it was probable the company would wish, in a short time, to locate engine-houses and necessary sidetracks therefor at said places, and requested said Roop to reserve land suitably situated for that purpose, and that said Roop, being willing to give the land for that purpose, and desiring to express such intention, inserted the language we have quoted in said plat, believing that it would still be necessary to execute a formal deed before any title would vest in the railroad company, and that said language was used through ignorance and mistake, under said belief that it amounted to no more than a declaration of said intention. The answer further charges that the plaintiff acquired all the pretended rights of the said railroad company with full knowledge and notice of the foregoing facts, and asks that the language so employed in said map and plat be so reformed as to express the intention of the parties executing the same. The reply admitted the said execution, acknowledgment, and filing for record, etc., of the...