Rucker v. Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co.

• Citation: 176 Ala. 456,58 So. 465
• Parties: RUCKER v. TENNESSEE COAL, IRON & R. CO.
• Decision Date: 04 April 1912
• Court: Supreme Court of Alabama

58 So. 465

176 Ala. 456

RUCKER v. TENNESSEE COAL, IRON & R. CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 4, 1912

Rehearing Denied May 1, 1912.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Jefferson County; A. H. Benners Chancellor.

Action by E. W. Rucker against the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed and rendered.

George L. Smith, of Birmingham, for appellant.

Percy Benners & Burr, of Birmingham, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

This is a statutory bill by the complainant, appellant here, to quiet title to land. The cause was submitted for final decree on the pleading and an agreed statement of facts, and from a final decree in favor of the defendant the present appeal is prosecuted.

In the bill the land in controversy is described as S.W. 1/4 of the S.W. 1/4 of section 28, township 17 S., range 4 W., and N.W 1/4 of N.W. 1/4 of section 29, township 17 S., range 6 W., situated in Jefferson county, Ala. The court judicially knows that here are two separate tracts. There was no demurrer; but by its answer defendant brought to the court's attention the fact that it claimed the separate tracts under distinct claims of title, and thereupon contends that the bill is multifarious and should have been dismissed for that reason on final hearing. There is no merit in the contention. Not only does the statute prohibit the defense unless taken by demurrer (Code, § 3095), but one purpose of it, which is to prevent the loading of each defendant with an unnecessary burden of costs by swelling the pleadings with the state of the several claims of the other defendants with which he has no connection, cannot be subserved except the defense be so taken. While admitting the defense in proper cases, the courts also keep in view the policy of preventing a multiplicity of suits. In the case presented by the bill, in which a single complainant proceeds against a single defendant in respect to separate tracts claimed, as the event has shown, by the complainant under one title and by the defendant under titles much the same as to each tract, it is manifestly to the advantage of the parties that the controversy as to both tracts be settled in one suit.

This land belonged in his lifetime to one Thomas Peters, who died in 1883. Both parties trace their title back to him as a common source. Neither party has had possession, so that the issue is one of title, drawing to it the constructive possession of the property in question, with the burden upon complainant to show a legal title in order to maintain his bill. This burden the complainant undertook to discharge by showing a quitclaim of both tracts executed and delivered to him in 1892 by Thos. P. Henly, sole heir at law and devisee of Peters. But in 1885 the estate of Peters had been decreed to be insolvent by the chancery court of Jefferson to which the administration had been duly removed. One insistence on behalf of the appellee is that the decree of insolvency ipso facto divested all title to the real estate of Thomas Peters, deceased, out of his heir and devisee, and that therefore complainant took nothing by his deed from Henley.

As at common law, lands pass to the heir or devisee eo instante the death of the ancestor, subject only to be interrupted by the exercise by the personal representative of the powers conferred on him by the statutes. The heir or devisee may alien the lands, the alienation being subject to and not frustrating the statutory powers of the personal representative. Cruikshank v. Luttrell, 67 Ala. 318. The decree of insolvency under the Code of 1876, of force at the time, merely ascertained as between the personal representative and the creditors the status of the estate, and operated to transfer to the chancery court in the conduct of the administration exclusive jurisdiction of all claims against the estate. Under the statute of that date, creditors were the only persons to whom notice of the proceeding for a decree of insolvency was required, who were barred by the decree, or against whom it was evidence that the estate was insolvent. As to all others it was res inter alios acta, not affecting their rights, and not evidence as against them of any fact ascertained by it. Randle v. Carter, 62 Ala. 102; McMillan v. Rushing, 80 Ala. 402; Kilgore v. Kilgore, 103 Ala. 614, 15 So. 897. Appellee relies upon Boddie v. Ward, 151 Ala. 198, 44 So. 105, as sustaining its contention that the decree of insolvency divested the legal title to the lands of the estate out of the heir. But we do not so read the case. There was no decision that a decree of insolvency vested the legal title of decedent's estate in the personal representative. There was in that case no occasion, nor can there be in any case any necessity, for such a doctrine. The personal representative may maintain ejectment in his own name for the lands of his intestate or testator; but this is not because any title resides in him, but because possession is necessary to the exercise of his statutory authority. McKay v. Brood, 70 Ala. 377; Wilson v. Kirkland, 55 So. 174. In the case relied upon the heir was attacking his own deed to the personal representative of his ancestor on the ground that it had been procured by fraud and undue influence. Notwithstanding a previous decree of insolvency, the statement of the opinion in one place is that "the administrator was constituted by the conveyance the repository of the legal title." And the ruling was that, to show a beneficial interest in the property so conveyed, it was necessary for the heir to negative a recital of the deed to the effect that the estate had been judicially declared insolvent--by which, we take it, was meant to say that the fact recited must be negatived--"as well as affirm the solvency of the estate; and this, for the obvious reason that he is attacking the validity of a title consequent upon his deed." So then, unless the title to these lands was divested out of Henley, or his vendee, by subsequent proceedings for the sale of them, had in the exercise of jurisdiction legally acquired and exercised in the course of administration, or, for reasons urged and to be considered, Henley and his alienee, the complainant, are now estopped to deny the validity of those proceedings, Henley's deed did pass the title of his ancestor to complainant, and he is entitled to a decree.

On June 21, 1902, defendant (appellee) took Henley's quitclaim to both the tracts in suit, and had the same recorded forthwith. Complainant's deed was not recorded until August 1, 1906. By its deed defendant did not acquire anything which the grantor had previously conveyed to another, though the prior deed was not recorded. Webb v. Elyton Land Co., 105 Ala. 471, 18 So. 178; Derrick v. Brown, 66 Ala. 162. "By the prevailing weight of authority the grantee in a quitclaim deed cannot be accorded the favored position of a purchaser for value and without notice; the reason being that the instrument purports to convey only such interest as the grantee may then have in the property, and thus by its own terms puts the purchaser upon inquiry as to any and all defects that may exist in the title, by way of outstanding incumbrances, equities, and the like." 23 Am. & Eng. Encyc. p. 510. Such is the law of this state. Wood v. Holly Mfg. Co., 100 Ala. 326, 13 So. 948, 46 Am. St. Rep. 56; O'Neal v. Seixas, 85 Ala. 80, 4 So. 745; Barclift v. Lillie, 82 Ala. 319, 2 So. 120, authorities last above.

But to the land in section 28 defendant has the administrator's deed dated January 8, 1903. This deed was made under authority of the following proceedings in the chancery court In December, 1902, the administrator filed his petition, alleging the previous decree of insolvency and the continuance of that status of the estate of his decedent; "that in his lifetime and for many years previous to his death decedent dealt largely in the purchase and sale of lands in Jefferson and Walker counties; that from time to time he bought the entire estate or minerals in probably as much as 100,000 acres of land; that he made many sales, trades, and mortgages of same, and at the time of his death was in possession of a very small portion of this land so far as petitioner can ascertain. Your petitioner further states that, since he was discharged as administrator in chief, he discovered that the records of deeds in Jefferson and Walker counties show no conveyance by said decedent of the surface rights in and to a number of tracts of land, nor of the minerals and mineral rights in and to a few tracts which appear of record to have been conveyed at one time or another to decedent." Then followed an averment that the defendant in this cause, the Tennessee Company, claimed title to said lands and was in adverse possession of a part of them, and a description of the lands according to the government survey, amounting to about 2,500 acres and including the tract in controversy in section 28. The effect of further averments is that the Tennessee Company, defendant here, had offered to compromise the question of ownership by paying a price in excess, in administrator's opinion, of any price decedent's interest in the lands might be expected to bring at public sale. The prayer of the petition was that Thomas P. Henley--of whom it is to be inferred, from facts shown in various parts of the record, including a recital in his deed to complainant, in 1892, and from the course adopted by the court in acting on this petition, that he was of age at the time--be given notice, and that a reference be ordered to ascertain whether it would be to the interest of the estate and the creditors thereof to accept the proposed compromise. The decree of reference recites a submission by agreement of the solicitors for the...