Showers v. Robinson
| Decision Date | 09 June 1880 |
| Citation | 5 N.W. 988,43 Mich. 502 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | SHOWERS v. ROBINSON and another. |
The statute which limits the time for bringing suits for the recovery of land held under probate sales to five years, only applies to cases in which the suit brings in controversy the validity of such a sale. If the plaintiff's title is such that the probate sale is immaterial to it, the statute has no application.
The claim of a widow to a homestead right, in behalf of herself and her children, does not bring in question the validity of an administrator's sale of the same land to pay debts of the intestate, since the sale must be deemed made subject to the homestead right.
Whether lands can rightfully be sold to pay debts of a decedent subject to a homestead right, quoere. If such sale is ordered and made, however, it is not absolutely void, and cannot be attacked collaterally, but is only voidable on appeal.
A widow may have dower set off in lands which are subject to a homestead right, and this will not estop her from claiming the homestead afterwards.
A widow is not estopped from claiming a homestead in lands by the fact that she desired its sale for the payment of debts, and requested a party to buy the land, and received for the proceeds the amount of a claim allowed in her favor. Estoppel in pais has no application to interests in lands. Moreover it must be presumed that the sale the widow desired was a sale subject to the homestead.
The acts of the widow in moving away from the homestead for a time, or in neglecting to claim it, cannot deprive the minor children of the right to claim it. If she neglects or refuses to assert their claim, it may be done by some other proper representative.
Minor children are not necessary parties to a suit brought by the widow, their mother, to recover the homestead, though it is proper to join them.
Error to Van Buren.
Lester A. Taber, for plaintiff in error.
Brown, Howard & Roos, for defendant in error.
The plaintiff is the widow of Jacob Showers, and the mother of his three infant children, who reside with her. As such widow and mother she brings ejectment to recover that part of the south-west quarter of the south-east quarter of section 32 in town 3 south, of range 13 west, Van Buren county, which lies west of a highway running through the same. Defendants are in possession of the land, and claim it by virtue of a sale made by the administrator of Jacob Showers, under a license from the probate court. The highway divides the 40-acre lot above described into two parcels, the east one of which, containing six or seven acres, is occupied by the plaintiff, it having been set off to her as her dower. The west parcel, now in controversy, contains some 30 acres.
The plaintiff was married to Jacob Showers in 1856. In the same year he became owner of this 40-acre lot, and moved with his wife upon it. From that time they occupied it as their homestead until he died, in 1869. Charles M. Morrell was appointed administrator on the estate of Showers soon after his death, and took possession, as such, of the land west of the highway. The other parcel was assigned to the widow as her dower in 1870, on her petition. In 1872 the the widow moved off the parcel so assigned to her as dower, into a village half a mile distant. She claims to have done this at the request and under the advice of the judge of probate and administrator.
When Showers died he left no personal property available for the payment of his debts. The claims allowed against his estate amounted to $642.82, including one in favor of the plaintiff of $154.80. The administrater made sale of the premises in controversy in 1873, and they were bid in by defendant Robinson for $1,275. There was evidence in the case that plaintiff requested Robinson to make this purchase, and she afterwards applied in the probate court and had the administrator summoned to render his account of the proceeds. Her own claim was paid to her. This suit was begun in 1878, a little over five years from the time Robinson made his purchase. The case was tried by jury, and the jury, under instructions of the judge, to be noticed further on, returned a verdict for defendants.
It is claimed on the part of the defence that the action was barred by sections 4594 and 7137 of Compiled Laws. The first of these provides that "no action for the recovery of any estate sold by an executor or administrator under the provisions of this chapter shall be maintained by any heir or other person, claiming under the deceased testator or intestate, unless it be commenced within five years next after the sale." The second requires the action to be brought within five years after the right accrues, "where the defendant claims title to the land in question by or through some deed made on a sale thereof by an executor, administrator or guardian, or by a sheriff or other proper ministerial officer, under the order, judgment, decree or process of a court or legal tribunal of competent jurisdiction within this state."
These are broad provisions, and seem on first reading to embrace every possible case in which the defendants' title is derived through a probate sale. But one would be at a loss if he were in search of reasons for adopting provisions so comprehensive in meaning and scope. It cannot have been the purpose to impart any peculiar sacredness to a title derived under judicial proceedings, and to give it a preference in protection over one that had always been transferred by the voluntary conveyances of parties assuming to be owners. If, for example, two persons were to disseize another of different parcels of his land at the same time, and the possession of one should be transferred to a purchaser by execution sale, and that of the other to a person accepting the disseizor's own conveyance, it would be impossible to assign any sensible reason why the owner should pursue his remedy against one any more speedily than against the other. Each purchaser from a trespasser would himself be a trespasser, and one could have no equity entitling him to the favor of the law more than the other.
Moreover, statutes of limitation have regard specially to the laches of the owner, and they deny him a remedy for the recovery of his rights, because he has failed to pursue them within a reasonable time. Tell v. Wright, 37 Mich. 93. But a time that is only reasonable for pursuing a disseizor, cannot become unreasonable by the mere fact that the disseizor's possession is taken from him under a judicial sale to which the owner is in no sense a party. The law imposes upon the owner no obligation to take notice of or follow the changes and transfers which are made among those who are trespassing upon his rights. His equity is the same against the second as against the first, and survives as long; and he is only concerned in ascertaining who is the wrong-doer at the time he seeks his legal redress.
There are parties, however, who, as against purchasers at judicial sales, may well be required to move with the utmost promptitude. The case of heirs whose inheritance is sold for the payment of debts of their ancestor is such a case. The heirs are parties to the proceedings which result in such sales, and they are seldom ignorant of the several steps as they take place. If they believe these steps have not been taken in conformity with the law, and desire to contest the sale, they may justly be required to do so speedily, while the proceedings are recent, and while mere errors or accidental omissions may, perhaps, be corrected. This is particularly true of such cases because the purchaser, if, through the error of others, he loses the land which he has bought in good faith, ought to have some remedy for the recovery of the money paid, and this he is not likely to find after any considerable delay.
It is probable that one reason for the enactment of these short statutes of limitations was that under the former law, when the validity of judicial sales might be contested at any time within 20 years after the taking of possession under them, it sometimes happened that heirs by calculated delay first suffered the ancestor's estate to be cleared of debts by administrator's sales, which they left undisputed and undisturbed until it had become too late for the purchasers to obtain indemnity, and then recovered back the land which had paid the debts by taking advantage of errors in the proceedings. Even where this injustice was not originally contemplated it often resulted, and it was eminently just and proper, that a short statute of limitations should exist for such cases.
But to render the reason of these statutes applicable, the possessor must not only claim title through some judicial sale, but it must be the validity of this title which is in controversy between him and the plaintiff, and the subject-matter of the issue to be tried. It is when the plaintiff contests such a sale that he is required to move promptly. But if the nature of the plaintiff's right is such that it is immaterial to him whether a probate sale is regular or irregular, and he claims to recover on grounds that leave that sale out of view, the statutes can have no application to his case, because the reasons on which they are enacted are absent. The intent of these statutes is that the sales therein enumerated shall not be brought in question and contested because of defects after the time named therein has elapsed, and they cannot be applied to a case in which the plaintiff concedes, or has no occasion to question, the judicial sale.
2. The question, then, is whether the right asserted by the plaintiff does bring in question the validity of the administrator's sale, so that to sustain the suit...
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