Quintana v. Vigil

• Decision Date: 29 April 1942
• Docket Number: No. 4678.,4678.
• Citation: 125 P.2d 711,46 N.M. 200
• Parties: QUINTANAv.VIGIL et al.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

46 N.M. 200

125 P.2d 711

QUINTANA

v.VIGIL et al.

No. 4678.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

April 29, 1942.

Appeal from District Court, San Miguel County; Eugene D. Lujan, Judge.

Suit to quiet title to realty by Ceferino R. Quintana against Jose S. Vigil and others, wherein certain of the defendants filed a cross-complaint. From the decree quieting plaintiff's title, the defendants appeal.

Decree affirmed.

Where document which was entitled judgment, though dated June 9, was actually filed with clerk on July 16, trial court had until July 16, at least, ignoring 30-day period during which by statute court is given control over its judgments, to give consideration to findings proposed by defendants. Comp.St.1929, § 105-801.

Jose E. Armijo, of Las Vegas, for appellants.

Noble & Spiess, of Las Vegas, for appellee.

SADLER, Justice.

The plaintiff, who is appellee here, sued Jose S. Vigil and Valentina B. de Vigil, his wife, and Ramon F. Vigil and Ignacita Sena de Vigil, his wife, seeking to quiet title to described real estate. The complaint was in statutory form and did not affirmatively disclose whether the plaintiff was in or out of possession. The defendants, Jose S. Vigil and wife, answered denying plaintiff's title and by cross complaint sought a decree quieting their own title as against him. The defendants, Ramon F. Vigil and wife, answering likewise, denied plaintiff's title and, as an affirmative defense, set up their own claim to a part of the property, asking that the same be adjudged superior to any right, title or claim of his. Both sets of defendants alleged themselves to be in possession of the property claimed by them, respectively. Jose S. Vigil and wife also pleaded adverse possession for the statutory period; and Ramon F. Vigil and wife, that they were holding under the other Vigils. Formal replies by plaintiff denying all affirmative allegations of the separate answers and cross complaint made up the issues and thereby closed the pleading of the parties.

Thus the matter stood on May 19, 1941, nearly two months after filing of the answers, when each set of defendants filed separate motions to dismiss on the ground that a suit to quiet title could not be maintained by plaintiff because their answers “set up title, possession and right to possession to the land described in the complaint, in them”, and that plaintiff had a plain, adequate and complete remedy at law by ejectment. On the same date all four defendants joined in a petition filed in the cause entitled, “Petition for Trial by Jury”, in which it was stated that defendants “hereby demand trial by jury in the above entitled and numbered cause”. On May 22, 1941, after hearing on the separate motions and petition, orders were entered denying each motion to dismiss and the petition for jury trial as well.

Thereafter, on June 9, 1941, the cause came on for trial before the court without a jury. Prior to the introduction of any testimony, however, the defendants renewed orally their motions to dismiss and their petition for a jury trial, setting up the same grounds previously urged. The motions and petition again were denied. Likewise, when plaintiff rested and at the conclusion of taking testimony as both sides rested, the motions to dismiss were renewed, the defendants urging that a suit to quiet title was inappropriate, ejectment being the proper remedy. These oral motions met the same fate as their predecessors.

The trial concluded, the court adopted formal findings reciting among other things that plaintiff was the fee simple owner of the real estate involved, deraigning title thereto from the sovereignty; that the defendants, Ramon F. Vigil and wife, claimed through the defendant, Jose S. Vigil, but had wholly failed to show in themselves any color of title whatever; and that the defendants, Jose S. Vigil and wife, had failed to show possession of the real estate, under color of title, with the usual elements necessary to establish title by limitations, for ten years or more prior to the filing of plaintiff's complaint. The conclusion of law which logically followed was adopted by the court to the effect that plaintiff owned said real estate in fee simple as against all defendants. Decree was entered accordingly to review which the defendants prosecute this appeal.

[1] The defendants assert they are chiefly aggrieved by the action of the trial court in turning a deaf ear to their several importunities for a dismissal of the complaint, or for a jury trial in the cause as it stood. Unquestionably, they made vocal as well as written claim to this alternative relief. We mention the two rulings sought as alternative because they are obviously so. If the action of the trial judge in denying the motions to dismiss was not an abuse of judicial discretion residing in him, it would seem to follow as a matter of course that his denial of the application for a jury trial in a quieting title suit is not error. Young v. Vail, 29 N.M. 324, 222 P. 912, 34 A.L.R. 980, and Pankey v. Ortiz, 26 N.M. 575, 195 P. 906, 30 A.L.R. 92.

The defendants at no time mistook the nature of the suit against them as an equitable one to quiet title to certain real estate. Indeed, Jose S. Vigil and wife, after answering and as a part of the same pleading, interposed a cross complaint, being a complaint in statutory form to quiet their title to the same premises, pleading therein in addition a title by adverse possession and closing with a prayer for an appropriate decree and general relief. The other defendants, Ramon F. Vigil and wife, likewise followed their answer of formal denials by a further answer “by way of affirmative defense” in which they set up their claim on the property, praying the dismissal of plaintiff's complaint, for a decree adjudging the superiority of their title over the plaintiff's and for general relief. Each set of defendants in the answer filed, as noted, invoked the equity powers of the court. Thus the matter presented itself to the trial judge when the first motions to dismiss or for a jury trial of the cause as it stood were interposed.

The defendants practically rest their claim to a reversal, so far as this question is concerned, on the case of Pankey v. Ortiz, supra. But the cases are different. In the Pankey case the complaint affirmatively alleged that the defendants were in possession. First, a demurrer was interposed and overruled, whereupon the defendants answered over. In their answer they admitted possession and cultivation of the lands involved and asserted ownership of the tracts occupied, claiming they and their predecessors in title had been in the open, notorious, exclusive, adverse possession, hostile to the world, continuously since the year 1846. Furthermore, they renewed their claims of a constitutional right to a jury trial under the admitted fact of possession, which had first been raised in the overruled demurrer. They not only did not invoke the court's exercise of its equitable jurisdiction by seeking to quiet their own title or by asking an order decreeing its superiority over plaintiff's but, on the contrary, asked for a single ruling-the dismissal of plaintiff's complaint to the end, presumably, that in order to get possession, he would be compelled to resort to ejectment, wherein they would have a jury trial as a matter of course.

[2] It is to be noted, therefore, that the controlling fact of possession, in the Pankey case even alleged in the complaint itself, was here a disputed fact on the pleadings as they stood when the defendants moved to dismiss and petitioned for a jury trial. In addition, these motions and the petition were to be viewed and appraised in the light of the defendants' pleadings on file, the one of which cross complained and sought the strictly equitable relief of a quieting title decree and the other affirmative relief equitable in character.

[3][4] Under the issues as thus framed when the motions and petition came on for hearing, the plaintiff was entitled to an equity trial as a matter of right if the proof showed him in possession and as a matter of consent even though it should show defendants in possession. In such circumstances, it is not a harsh rule that requires a defendant to make up his mind at the outset whether he will appear and litigate in equity or stand on his right to defend in an action at law. Here the defendants seemed unwilling to let their decision rest on an abiding conviction of what the proof would show. Their answers and cross complaint sought an equity trial; their motions and petition a jury trial to which they were entitled contingently only. Even if we may assume that possession was subsequently established in them, as we doubt our right to do on the record before us, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in holding the defendants to the waiver of the right to jury trial, if the facts subsequently should show them entitled thereto, arising from their voluntary request at the very outset that equity take jurisdiction and award them relief. 21 C.J. 171, § 149, “Equity”; 30 C.J.S., Equity, § 88; 35 C.J. 207; 51 C.J. 187; Young v. Vail, 29 N.M. 324, 222 P. 912, 34 A. L.R. 980; Cooper v. Otero, 38 N.M. 164, 29 P.2d 341; Carroll v. McLaren, 60 Or. 233, 118 P. 1034; Pedro v. Vey, 150 Or. 415, 39 P.2d 963, 46 P.2d 582; American Mills Company v. American Surety Company, 257 U.S. 626, 42 S.Ct. 49, 66 L.Ed. 404.

In Cooper v. Otero, supra [38 N.M. 164, 29 P.2d 349], we quoted approvingly from 21 C.J. 171, § 149, as follows: “One who voluntarily invokes the equity jurisdiction of the court cannot subsequently urge that his complaint should have been dismissed because of adequacy of the remedy at law. So a defendant who seeks affirmative equitable relief is precluded from subsequently raising such objection. This is also true of an intervener who invokes the aid of equity.” 30 C.J.S., Equity, § 88.

In Young v. Vail, supra [29 N.M. 324, 222 P....