Vandegrift v. Shortridge

• Decision Date: 17 April 1913
• Citation: 181 Ala. 275,61 So. 897
• Parties: VANDEGRIFT et al. v. SHORTRIDGE.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

61 So. 897

181 Ala. 275

VANDEGRIFT et al. v. SHORTRIDGE.

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 17, 1913

Rehearing Denied May 8, 1913

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

Suit by Annie Vandegrift and another against W.W. Shortridge. From a decree for defendant, complainants appeal. Reversed and rendered.

W.H Smith and J.T. Collins, Jr., both of Birmingham, for appellants.

L.J Haley, Jr., of Birmingham, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

Appellants filed their bill to quiet title to certain lands. The second paragraph of the bill avers that "complainants are in the peaceable possession of, and own," the lands in suit. In answering this specific paragraph respondent merely "denies that the complainants are the owners of the land described," excepting one 40 as to which he disclaimed.

This must be taken as an admission of the truth of the averment of the bill as to complainants' peaceable possession, since this fact was prima facie within the knowledge, information or belief of respondent. Agnew v. McGill, 96 Ala. 496, 500, 11 So. 537; Holmes v. State, 100 Ala. 291, 14 So. 51; Alexander v. Rea, 50 Ala. 450; Clark v. Jones, 41 Ala. 349; Kirkman v. Vanlier, 7 Ala. 218. And, indeed, the evidence sufficiently established the fact, independently of the answer's admission.

In this state of the pleading and proof, it was incumbent upon respondent to propound a claim or title superior to complainants' right of possession. Adler v. Sullivan, 115 Ala. 582, 585, 22 So. 87; Brand v. U.S. Car Co., 128 Ala. 579, 30 So. 60. In this respondent completely failed, and on the undisputed evidence complainants were entitled to a decree quieting their title as against any claim of respondent's.

Unaided by any brief for respondent (appellee), we infer from the evidence adduced in his behalf that his claim of title rests upon the former ownership of his father who acquired the lands from the government, and the theory that title never passed from him by the deed he executed to the Southern Mineral Land Company in 1858; or else upon the notion that a decree rendered in respondent's favor in April, 1910, quieting his title to these lands as against said land company, reinvested him with the title originally held by his said father.

In the deed from the elder Shortridge to the land company, the granting clause conveys a number of tracts described by the government numbers, and then proceeds: "Also the undivided half of the N.E. 4 of the S.W. 4 of section 30, township 21, range 3 west; and *** and ***; and the S.W. 4 of the S.W. 4 of section 31, township 21, range 4 west, etc. (including the lands in suit)." The contention seems to be that the phrase "undivided half" qualifies not only the tract immediately described, but also all the succeeding descriptions.

We do not think the deed is reasonably...