Odom v. Riddick

• Decision Date: 14 January 1890
• Citation: 10 S.E. 609,104 N.C. 515
• Parties: ODOM et al. v. RIDDICK et al.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

10 S.E. 609

104 N.C. 515

ODOM et al. v. RIDDICK et al.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

January 14, 1890

Appeal from superior court, Gates county.

Action by the heirs of Oliver H. Odom against N. J. Riddick and others, owners of certain land by conveyance from R. B. Odom to set aside a deed thereof executed by Oliver B. Odom, while a lunatic, to said R. B. Odom. Both parties appeal.

The title of a purchaser for value, without notice, from the grantee of a lunatic, is good as against the heirs of the lunatic.

W. D Pruden and L. L. Smith, for plaintiffs.

Battle & Mordecai, for defendants.

CLARK J.

The reference was by consent. By its terms the referee was vested "with power, sitting as a chancellor, to decide upon the facts, and all matters of law and equity arising upon the pleadings and testimony, with liberty to either party to except as to the referee's rulings on such matters of law and equity, and to appeal therefrom." The parties reserved the right to except only to the referee's rulings as to the law. By any reasonable construction, his findings of fact were to be conclusive. He found as a fact that the defendants purchased the land for value, and without notice of any mental incapacity on the part of Oliver Odom.

Had the defendants purchased directly from Oliver Odom for value, and without notice of his mental incapacity to make a deed, a court of equity would not ordinarily set aside the deed. Riggan v. Green, 80 N.C. 236. We do not see that the condition of the defendants is any worse because they bought mediately, and not immediately. The presumption of law is in favor of sanity; and this presumption is so strong that when a want of it is claimed, even in a capital case, the burden is on the defendant to prove it, the presumption of sanity being stronger than the presumption of innocence. When therefore, a purchaser sees a regular chain of title, formal in all particulars, upon the registration books, executed by grantors of full age, and not femes covert, he has a right to rely upon the presumption of sanity; and if, without any notice, or matter to put him upon inquiry, and for fair value, he takes a deed, he should be protected. Any other doctrine would place all titles upon the hazard. If the title of an innocent purchaser for value, and without notice, can be upset for the alleged mental incapacity of one grantor, it can be done though the grantor may have been a very remote one. The evidence must necessarily be sought among those friendly to the heirs of such grantor,--the neighbors and acquaintances of the party of alleged incapacity; and it would be difficult for the grantee in possession to furnish proof of the sanity of every grantor through whom he claims. Every man who shows the abnormal condition of mind which incapacitates him to make a conveyance of his property is sure to attract the attention of those around him, who have the power, and sometimes exercise it, to conceal the fact. It is a safer rule to require his heirs, or those acting for them, to take prompt steps to have the deed set aside, and parties placed in statu quo, before the property is conveyed to other parties, and while the facts are capable of full investigation, than to subject a remote grantee to maintain the integrity of his title by rebutting allegations of incapacity in any one of a long line of grantors.

A purchaser for value, from one whose deed was declared by the jury to be fraudulent and void, gets a good title, if he has no notice of the fraud in his vendee's deed. Young v Lathrop, 67 N.C. 63; Wade v. Saunders, 70 N.C 270; Davis v. Council, 91 N.C. 725; Perry v. Jackson, 88 N.C. 103. The fact that it is found here that the defendants' grantor obtained the deed without fraud or undue influence, for a full and fair price, and acting under advice of Oliver Odom's counsel, who had been his attorney for years, surely cannot be allowed to put the defendants in a worse plight than they would have been placed if their grantor had procured the conveyance by fraud and undue influence. The great teachers of English law say that persons of non-sane memory, etc., "are not totally disabled to convey or purchase, but only sub modo. Their conveyances are voidable, but not void." 2 Bl. Comm. 291, and 2 Kent, Comm. 451. The deed of a person of unsound mind, not under guardianship, conveys the seisin. Wait v. Maxwell, 5 Pick. 217; Crouse v. Holman, 19 Ind. 30, and cases cited. Story, Eq. Jur. § 227, says: "The ground upon which courts of equity now interfere to set aside the contracts and other facts, however solemn, of persons who are idiots, lunatics, and otherwise non compotes mentis is fraud. Such persons being incapable, in point of capacity, to enter into any valid contract, or to do any valid act, every person dealing with them, knowing their incapacity, is deemed to perpetrate a meditated fraud upon they and their rights." To same purport, Adams, Eq. 183, and cases cited. This places the doctrine upon an intelligible basis, and delivers the courts from the evident injustice and insurmountable inconvenience of declaring that all contracts made with one apparently sane, but who proves to have been insane, are void ab initio for want of consenting mind. This doctrine would give a lunatic or his heirs restoration of property sold by him without return of the money received for it, as was actually held in Gibson v. Soper, 6 Gray, 279, and Rogers v. Walker, 6 Pa. St. 371. The correct rule is stated by Mr. Story, in section 228: "If a purchase is made in good faith, without any knowledge of the incapacity, and no advantage has been taken of the party, courts of equity will not interfere to set aside the contract, if injustice will hereby be done to the other side, and the parties cannot be placed instatu quo." Busw. Insan. § 413, says: "A completed contract for the sale of lands, made by an insane vendor, without fraud or notice to the vendee of the grantor's insanity, and for a fair consideration, will not be set aside, either at law or in equity, in favor of the vendor or his representatives, except the purchase money be restored, and the parties fully reinstated in the condition in which they were prior to the purchase. This rule appears to be unquestioned in the English courts." To the same effect is the able opinion of HORTON, C.J., in Gribben v. Maxwell, 34 Kan. 8, 7 P. 584, (decided in 1885,) in which numerous authorities are reviewed and commented upon; and also in Behrens v. McKenzie, 23 Iowa, 333, delivered by a very eminent judge, (DILLON,) and Corbit v. Smith, 7...