Rannels v. Rowe

• Decision Date: 14 December 1908
• Docket Number: 2,163.
• Citation: 166 F. 425
• Parties: RANNELS v. ROWE et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

166 F. 425

RANNELS v. ROWE et al.

No. 2,163.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

December 14, 1908

Julian Laughlin (M. L. Stephenson and E. C. Hornor, on the brief) for appellant.

W. H H. Miller, for appellees.

Before SANBORN, HOOK, and ADAMS, Circuit Judges.

HOOK Circuit Judge.

This cause arises on the petition of one of the appellees and the successor of another for leave to file a bill of review in the court below. When the cause first arose in this court a decree was directed in favor of the appellant, Rannels quieting his title to an undivided half interest in certain lands in Arkansas. 145 F. 296, 74 C.C.A. 376. The record showed that all the parties to the suit traced title to Edmund McGehee, who died in Mississippi in 1865, leaving a will in which he bequeathed and devised half of his estate to his widow and the other half to his children. The widow was named as one of the executors. In 1873 the widow in her representative capacity joined with her associates in executing executors' deeds, conveying with covenants of warranty the lands in controversy to a railroad company under which Rannels claimed. The appellees claimed under conveyances afterwards made by the widow and children. The executors' deeds, as such, were void, because no authority to make them had been obtained from a court of competent jurisdiction; but we held that upon principles of estoppel they operated to convey the widow's half interest and that the interest finally vested in Rannels.

It is now desired to file a bill of review, and two grounds are set forth: First, newly discovered evidence consisting of court records in Bolivar county, Miss., where the estate of Edmund McGehee was being administered, showing, it is said, that in 1875 the widow there renounced her rights under the will and elected to take in lieu thereof a dower interest, which has since been extinguished; second, that in the direction for a decree provision should have been, but was not, made for equitable reimbursement to appellees for tax payments on the land in controversy.

Edmund McGehee died in 1865, and his will was probated in Mississippi in 1866. The widow's renunciation of the testamentary provisions in lieu of dower and her election to take dower occurred nine years later in Mississippi. The lands in controversy were in Arkansas, and it does not appear that there was a renunciation and election in that state. Under an...