Moore v. Moore

• Decision Date: 09 April 1925
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 298
• Citation: 212 Ala. 685,103 So. 892
• Parties: MOORE v. MOORE et al.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

103 So. 892

212 Ala. 685

MOORE v. MOORE et al.

6 Div. 298

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 9, 1925

Rehearing Denied April 30, 1925

Appeal from Circuit Court, Fayette County; R.L. Blanton, Judge.

Bill to reform a deed by W.M. Moore against Mexico Moore and others. From decree dismissing bill, complainant appeals. Affirmed.

S.T Wright, of Fayette, for appellant.

J.C Shepherd, of Berry, for appellees.

SAYRE J.

The bill in this cause was filed in April, 1923. In 1901 J.W. Moore purchased a tract of land in Fayette county.

In 1905 he suggested to his two sons, Willis and Harvey, that they agree among themselves upon a division of the tract promising that he would make them deeds according to their agreement. The sons agreed, and the father executed deeds, by which Willis acquired the title to 155 acres, mostly open land. Harvey 187 acres of wooded land. In 1921 Harvey died. This bill is filed by Willis against Mexico, the widow of Harvey, and their children, its purpose being to reform the deeds of 1905 so as to vest in Willis the title to 74 or 75 acres of the land conveyed to Harvey. At the hearing on pleading and proof the trial court dismissed the bill.

With sufficient accuracy it may be said that the dispute relates to two 40's which lie between complainant on the west and defendants on the east, and the mistake complained of would be remedied by a decree establishing the line between the east and west halves of the S.E. 1/4 of section 35, township 16, range 11 west, instead of the west line of said quarter section, as (in connection with the Big Branch to which we will refer hereafter) it was laid down in the deeds. These brothers appear to have lived in a relation of undisturbed friendship and good neighborhood on the lands deeded to them respectively by their father until the death of Harvey in 1921. Complainant's contention is that, except 12 or 15 acres which he cleared and cultivated for some years, the two 40's in question, wooded land, were resorted to by both of them indifferently for such domestic uses as that part of the land in its state afforded, and that, so far at least as he was concerned, he was not aware until after the death of his brother that the dividing line had by the deeds been located as it was. But for this relation of good understanding between the brothers, which in one aspect of the evidence seems to have left the use of the land in dispute a matter of indifference between them, and but for the fact that complainant cleared and cultivated the patch of 12 or 15 acres above referred to, a fact tending in a measure to account for the delay in filing the bill in this cause--but for these considerations the rule followed in Rives v. Morris, 108 Ala. 527, 18 So. 743, would afford a satisfactory answer to complainant's bill, viz.:

"Where, from delay, any conclusion the court may arrive at must at best be conjectural, and the original transactions have become so obscured by lapse of time, loss of evidence, and death of parties as to render it difficult if not impossible to do justice, the complainant will by his laches be precluded from relief; and it is not even necessary that the court should be satisfied that the original claim was unjust, or has been satisfied. And this is true even though the demand is not barred by the statute of limitations, nor under the ban of the doctrine of prescription."

But, even though not conclusive, this delay must in equity weigh heavily against complainant.

However, looking further for grounds of decision, we bear in mind that courts of equity do not grant the relief sought in this cause but only upon a certainty of error--error that must be shown by clear, exact, and convincing proof that the paper writing did not express the true agreement between the parties. Hough v. Smith, 132 Ala. 204, 31 So. 500. We do not consider that this rule as to the burden of proof has been changed by the Act of 1911, now appearing in sections 6960-6962 of the Code of 1923. That act, as we understand, was passed to confirm the principle of the ruling in Greer v. Watson, 170 Ala. 334, 54 So. 487, the reasons for which were more elaborately stated in Goulding v. Blanchard, 178 Ala. 298, 59 So. 485, where it was held that a grantee in a conveyance correctly describing the property conveyed might maintain a bill to correct error in a remote conveyance in his chain of title to which he was not a party. It may readily be conceived that in such case the burden of proof need not rest so heavily upon the party seeking reformation as in a case in which he seeks to reform a conveyance to which he was a party. At any rate, the court is of opinion that the act referred to did not intend to change the salutary and time-honored rule as to the burden of proof, when the complainant attacks a conveyance to which he was a party.

Appellant insists that appellees, Mexico Moore and her...