Rucker v. Dooley
| Decision Date | 30 September 1868 |
| Citation | 49 Ill. 377,95 Am.Dec. 614,1868 WL 5243 |
| Parties | JOSEPH W. RUCKERv.SARAH DOOLEY et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Chicago; the Hon. JOHN A. JAMESON, Judge, presiding.
The opinion states the case.
Mr. JOHN G. ROGERS and Mr. E. A. RUCKER, for the appellant.
Messrs. WILSON & MARTIN, for the appellees.
The object of the bill in this case was to quiet the title to a certain tract of land in Cook county, both parties claiming through the same source. The defendants, Weston, Davis and Hambleton, had enclosed the land, under their chain of title, in 1867, before the bill was filed and before the defendant Rucker had received the sheriff's deed, on which his claim was based, that deed bearing date January 6th, 1868.
It appears the land was sold by the sheriff of Cook county, on a judgment rendered in the Municipal Court of Chicago, in favor of one Murphy against John K. Boyer and Peter Pruyne, at the November term, 1837. The execution was dated March 22, 1838, and a levy and sale thereon to Henry L. Rucker, the certificate of which bears date July 25, 1838, the sum bid being fifty dollars, and the land being forty acres in section 20 in township 40 north, range 14 east.
H. L. Rucker assigned this certificate, it is alleged, to Joseph W. Rucker, the appellant, some seventeen years after its date, to wit: on the 5th of March, 1855. Appellant took no steps to procure a deed until the 6th of January, 1868, on which day the sheriff of Cook county executed to him a deed for the premises. During all this time, from July, 1838, to January, 1868, the land had passed through several purchasers claiming under Boyer by a regular chain of conveyances, duly recorded, up to John Dooley, the husband and devisor of the appellee, Sarah, when, in 1859, he claimed to be the legal owner. On the 21st November, 1867, John Dooley sold and agreed to convey the south-half of the premises to Weston, Davis and Hambleton at a stipulated price, one-half of which they had paid. They immediately entered into the possession of the premises and enclosed them by a fence, with the consent of Dooley.
In the beginning of January, 1868, it appears that one George B. Davis had agreed with Weston, Davis and Hambleton to purchase three acres of this land, and they furnished him with an abstract of title. On the 4th day of January, Davis laid this abstract before his attorney, Edward A. Rucker, Esq., for examination. On the 6th of January, it is alleged, Mr. Rucker procured, in the name of his brother, Joseph W., the appellant, a sheriff's deed of the premises, and on the next day caused the deed to be recorded, and soon afterwards informed George B. Davis that on examination of the abstract he found he himself was the owner of the premises, and proposed to sell them to Davis. Upon this, the purchasers from Dooley declined to make any further payments, and this bill was filed to remove the cloud thus created by the sheriff's deed. The Superior Court of Chicago, in which this bill was filed, decreed, substantially, that this deed was a cloud upon the complainant's title, and set it aside and ordered a re-conveyance from Rucker to Dooley, decreeing that the sheriff had no lawful power or authority to execute such deed, and that the same was fraudulent and void in law.
To reverse this decision the record is brought here by appeal, and several points are made which are disposed of by considering this question: Was the sheriff warranted, after the lapse of twenty-nine years, in making the deed to appellant?
The appellant insists, that there was no time limited within which the holder of a certificate of purchase was required to take out a deed after he became entitled to it.
There is, it is admitted, no express legislation on this subject, but there are well established principles of law, quite as potential as positive legislation, in the absence of legislation upon the subject.
Secret liens, such as the certificate of purchase may justly be considered, no publicity being given to them by recording them, are not favored in law, and are not usually enforced to the overthrow of rights honestly acquired without any notice of such liens.
The analogies of the law must be considered with reference to appellant's proposition. By statute, a judgment is a lien upon land for seven years, and then only when an execution has been taken out within a year. A writ of entry is barred after the lapse of twenty years. In McCoy v. Morrow, 18 Ill. 518, this court said, that creditors have a lien in this State against the estate of their deceased debtors for the satisfaction of their debts, which they may enforce through administration even against purchasers from heirs or devisees, and there is no statute interposing any limitation of time within which the lien must be enforced. The notion that this lien is perpetual, and may be enforced at any time against the land, after alienation by the heir, is wholly inadmissible.
The policy of our law is, to afford notice through public offices and records, of liens against lands, and the law will not favor liens of which it has provided no public notice. Nor does the law favor stale demands and rights slept on, until other rights and interests have arisen and become involved, which, from lapse of time, and consequent difficulty of proof, may be jeoparded by the setting up and sustaining the former; and in support of...
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Porter v. Schaffer
...in title and that interest must be paramount to the claim of his adversary. (citations omitted)(emphasis added). See also Rucker v. Dooley, 49 Ill. 377 (Ill.1868)(stating that "We do not understand that a plaintiff in a suit to quiet title is bound to show a perfect title as against all the......
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Bradley v. Lightcap
...Emmerson, 135 Ill. 55, 25 N. E. 842. The court, in the absence of express legislation on the subject, had formulated in Rucker v. Dooley, 49 Ill. 377, 99 Am. Dec. 614, an equitable rule based upon the analogies of the law, and it was urged upon the court that equity might order a conveyance......
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...chapter 77 was adopted? The section was enacted at the session of the General Assembly in the year 1872. In the case of Rucker v. Dooley, 49 Ill. 377, 99 Am. Dec. 614, decided in this court in the year 1868, we were called upon to determine as to the efficacy of a certificate of purchase wh......
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