Tompkins v. Holt

• Decision Date: 29 January 1891
• Citation: 91 Ala. 204,8 So. 794
• Parties: TOMPKINS v. HOLT ET AL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

8 So. 794

91 Ala. 204

TOMPKINS v. HOLT ET AL.

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 29, 1891

Appeal from chancery court, Montgomery county; JOHN A. FOSTER Chancellor.

Tompkins & Troy and Watts & Son, for appellant.

W A. Gunter, Cecil Brown, Graves & Blakey, Rice & Wiley, and Brickell, Semple & Gunter, for appellees.

MCCLELLAN J.

Reference is had to the reports of this case as heretofore presented and decided in this court for a fuller understanding of the matters involved in the present appeal. Holt v. Wilson, 75 Ala. 58; Wilson v. Holt, 83 Ala. 528, 3 South. Rep. 321, 85 Ala. 95, 4 South. Rep. 625. When the case was first here it was ruled (1) that by the antenuptial contract between Wilson and Mrs. Chambliss an express trust was, in effect, declared on the part of the latter to stand seised of the legal title to the use of her intended husband, which trust was to become operative on the death of her daughter, Sallie D. Chambliss; and (2) that the trust did become operative on the death of said Sallie in May, 1862; and, Mrs. Chambliss and Wilson having held and occupied the lands as equal tenants in common from the time of their marriage in 1861 to the death of the husband in 1865, that the husband's possession must be referred to the marriage contract under which he entered, and the continuance of such possession was evidence of a recognition of the trust as existing, continuing, and undischarged up to the time of his death, and subsequently to January 20, 1866, when Mrs. Wilson resigned the administration of his estate, and repudiated the trust by the destruction of the antenuptial contract; and that on this bill, filed by the heir of the husband in January, 1883, against parties claiming adversely to him through the widow, for an enforcement of the trust, no presumption of settlement or discharge of the trust from the lapse of time could arise, although the trust may have been repudiated immediately after the death of complainant's ancestor. 75 Ala. 58. The decisions of these points was not departed from on either of the subsequent adjudications of this court in the premises. The averments of the bill in respect to them remain the same as when the cause was first appealed. The evidence subsequently taken supports these allegations, and we now reaffirm the conclusion then reached as to the date at which the period of 20 years, relied on to raise up a presumption of settlement of the trust, began to run. This date was, as we have seen, January 20, 1866. The land was sold in 1877 and 1879 by the administrator of Mrs. Chambliss, formerly Mrs. Wilson, and Holt and others became the purchasers, went into possession, and afterwards, and prior to the filing of this bill, paid the purchase money in full, and the same was duly distributed to and received by those entitled to it under the testatrix's will. The bill was originally filed against the purchasers at this sale and certain vendees, to whom parts of the land had been sold by them, and also against the devisees of Mrs. Wilson. Upon their demurrer, these latter were stricken out, and the cause proceeded against said purchasers and their said vendees, until it was developed that the sale by the administrator cum testamento annexo was void for the want of jurisdictional allegations in the petition for the order of sale, and so adjudged by this court on the second appeal. 83 Ala. 528, 3 South. Rep. 321. When the cause was last here it was held that, the administrator's sale being inoperative to divest the legal title to the land out of the devisees of Mrs. Wilson, it was still in them; that the relief prayed by the bill could not be granted without having that title before the court; and hence that the devisees aforesaid were indispensable parties defendant to the bill. 85 Ala. 95, 4 South. Rep. 625. Accordingly, on April 11, 1889, the bill was amended so as to make said devisees parties defendant, and they were regularly served and brought before the court. Upon coming in, they by demurrer and pleas raised the point, among others, that the relief prayed against them was a stale demand, more than 20 years having elapsed from the last recognition of the alleged trust. The chancellor, holding this defense well taken, sustained the demurrer to the bill and overruled complainant's demurrers to the pleas. This appeal brings under review his action in that regard.

The trust having been repudiated on January 20, 1866, it is manifest, of course, that the 20 years necessary to raise up a presumption of its settlement and discharge had more than elapsed on April 11, 1889, when the amendment bringing in the holders of the legal title was made; and it is not pretended that there had been any recognition of the trust in the mean time. There can be no sort of doubt, we apprehend, that the amendment by which these parties were brought in must stand upon the same footing, so far as their defense of staleness of demand is concerned, as if it were an original action, and hence any relief sought against them must be considered, in respect of the diligence with which they have been impleaded from the standpoint of the amendment, and without reference to the filing of the original bill. Lawrence v. Ballou, 50 Cal. 258; Miller v. McIntyre, 6 Pet. 64; King v. Avery, 37 Ala. 169; Seibs v. Englehardt, 78 Ala. 508, and citations. This general proposition is not controverted here, but it is insisted for appellant that under the peculiar facts of this case it can have no application. The considerations relied on to this end are that Holt and others, claiming under the void administrator's sale, had a perfect equitable title to the land, resulting from the payment by them to the administrator of the entire purchase money, and its payment by the administrator to these devisees, who alone had any interest in the land, or the proceeds of its sale, and that the devisees now have, or had at the time they were made parties, no beneficial interest whatever in the subject matter of the suit, but "only the mere shell of a legal title, with no kernel of equity or beneficial interest in it." These facts may be, indeed they are, admitted. Not only so, but they were in the case as heretofore presented in this court; and the rulings then made, declaring these devisees to be necessary parties, must have proceeded in recognition of the want of beneficial interest or estate in them, and upon the theory that, inasmuch as the relief prayed-the only relief appropriate to the rights of complainant in the premises-involved the divestiture of the legal title, however naked and dissociated with real interest it might be, out of these devisees, and a vesting of it in the complainant, it could not be granted without having the thing upon which the decree was to have such important and vital operation before, and subject to the jurisdiction of, the court; so that the question may be said to be, in a sense, res adjudicata in the case. We cannot conceive the relief sought to be possible, on the facts now in the bill, except through a decree operating directly upon the legal title. The bill seeks...