Van Doren v. Miller

• Citation: 14 S.D. 264,85 N.W. 187
• Parties: ELDORA A. VAN DOREN, Plaintiff and respondent, v. E. R. MILLER, Defendant, and Charles Miller and G. L. Lowe, Defendatns and appellants.
• Decision Date: 12 February 1901
• Court: Supreme Court of South Dakota

14 S.D. 264, 85 N.W. 187 (1901)

ELDORA A. VAN DOREN,

Plaintiff and respondent,

v.E. R. MILLER,

Defendant,

and

Charles Miller and G. L. Lowe,

Defendatns and appellants.

South Dakota Supreme Court

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lake County, SD

Hon. Joseph W. Jones, Judge.

Affirmed

F. L. Soper

Attorneys for appellants.

Murray & Porter

Attorneys for respondent.

Opinion filed February 12, 1901

CORSON, J.

This is an action to quiet title to a portion of a quarter section of land in Lake county. Findings and lodgment were for the plaintiff, and the defendants appeal. The plaintiff deraigns title through one Thomas H. Van Doren, who made a homestead entry upon the quarter section in 1876, and received a government patent therefor in 1893. The defendant claims title under a judgment in an action in which E. R. Miller .was plaintiff and Thomas H. and Isaac N. Van Doren were defendants, docketed in Lake county in August, 1887, and the deed issued thereon in March, 1898. In 1880 Thomas H. Van Doren conveyed his interest in said quarter section to his wife. In 1881 the wife died intestate, leaving her husband, Thomas H., and three minor children, who succeeded to her estate. Van Doren and the children resided upon the property until the Ian of 1885, when they removed to another part of the county. In July, 1885, Van Doren became indebted to said Miller, which resulted in the sale and deed under which the defendants claim title. The court, having found the facts substantially as above stated, concluded, as matter of law, that the plaintiff is the owner in fee simple and entitled to the possession of the land described in the complaint, and that neither of said defendants has any right, title or interest in or to said land, or any part thereof.

It is contended on the part of the respondents, in support of the judgment of the court below, that, as the land was entered by Thomas H. Van Doren as a homestead under the laws of the United States, it was exempt from liability for any debt contracted by him prior to the issuance of the patent in 1893, under the provisions of section 2296, Rev. St. U. S., which reads as follows: “No lands acquired under the provisions of this chapter shall in any event become liable to the satisfaction of any debt contracted prior to the issuing of the patent therefor.” The appellant, on the other hand, contends that as Van Doren conveyed the property to his wife, and subsequently it came to him through succession to her estate, that section does not apply, and that by his conveyance he ceased to have the protection of the statute, and the sale thereafter made for a debt contracted by him subsequent to the time he succeeded to the property was a valid sale, and hence the defendant Miller is entitled to the property under his deed.

It will be noticed, by the terms of the act, that it is explicitly provided that no land acquired under the provisions of that act should in any event become liable for any debt contracted prior to the issuing of a patent therefor; and we must presume that congress used the term “patent” advisedly, and with the intention of barring any and all debts contracted by the homestead claimant prior to the issuance of the patent. In discussing this section of the statute, Judge Dillon uses the following language:

“It is not difficult to discover the reason for this provision. A leading object of the enactment was to benefit the poor man who was unable to buy lands at government price and receive his title at once and without condition, and it undoubtedly occurred to congress that many persons who had been unfortunate and were insolvent, would avail themselves of the act; and conceiving that the creditor, in such cases, had no equity to subject to the payment of his debt lands which had been given to the debtor by the bounty of the government, and to protect the debtor, and encourage persons to settle upon the public domain under the act, the fourth section was adopted.”

Seymour v. Sanders, 3 Dill. 437 Fed. Cas. No. 12,690. Taking this view by Judge Dillon as the correct one, it will he seen that the entry by the homesteader and its exemption from liability for his debts is in the nature of a contract, and that such homestead remains exempt from liability for the debts contracted by such homesteader prior to the issuance of the patent. In the case at bar, therefore, the conveyance of the property to his wife by Van Doren did not have the effect of depriving him of the benefit of this contract. This seems to have been the view taken by the supreme court of Nebraska in a case where this identical question was involved. Brandhoefer v. Bain, 45 Neb. 781, 64 N.W. 213. In that case Adam Brandhoefer, who had entered the land as a homestead under the federal law, conveyed the same to one Leonidas Brandhoefer, who subsequently conveyed the property to Eliza...