Vaughn v. Tracy

• Decision Date: 31 January 1856
• Parties: VAUGHN, Defendant in Error, v. TRACY, Plaintiff in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

22 Mo. 415

VAUGHN, Defendant in Error,

v.TRACY, Plaintiff in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January Term, 1856.

1. Possession of real property under an unrecorded deed is not, as a matter of law, actual notice to a subsequent purchaser, within the meaning of our registry act.

2. But a majority of the court are of opinion that it is evidence of notice, to be submitted to a jury.

3. The actual notice required by the registry act is not certain knowledge, but such information as men generally act upon in the transactions of life.

Error to Osage Circuit Court.

This was an action to recover the possession and obtain the legal title to one acre of ground upon which was a horse gristmill.

At the trial before the court, without a jury, the plaintiff, Vaughn, read in evidence articles of agreement, under seal, between himself and William R. Huckstep, dated March 3, 1845, by which the latter obligated himself, upon the payment of a certain sum, to convey to the former eighty acres of land. This agreement was not acknowledged, but was recorded on the 18th of September, 1846. It recited that one acre of the tract, “whereon the mill now stands,” had been previously sold by Huckstep to Vaughn for the sum of sixty dollars.

The defendant, Tracy, claimed title under a deed from Huckstep dated February 13, 1852, conveying eighty acres, including the acre in controversy, duly acknowledged and recorded.

At the trial, it appeared that plaintiff was in possession of the mill at the date of the deed to the defendant, and had been for some six or seven years previous, but was afterwards ousted by the defendant.

The court below gave the following declarations on motion of the defendant:

1. If the defendant, without notice of any adverse title or possession of the land in controversy, purchased the same bona fide and for a valuable consideration from Huckstep, and Huckstep executed and acknowledged a deed therefor to defendant, and the same has been recorded in the recorder's office of Osage county, the verdict ought to be for the defendant.

2. Although plaintiff may have been in possession of the land in controversy, and may have had a title bond or instrument in writing under seal, acknowledging the payment for said land from Huckstep, yet the plaintiff could not recover in this action, unless it appears that the instrument of writing read in evidence was duly acknowledged and recorded prior to the record of the defendant's deed, unless it appears from the evidence that defendant had actual notice of the plaintiff's title at the time of the defendant's purchase and payment for said land.

The following declaration asked by the defendant was refused:

3. The possession of the plaintiff can not affect the defendant's title unless the defendant had actual knowledge of such possession at the time of the execution of his deed or the payment of the purchase money.

The court found a verdict for the plaintiff, and gave a judgment for the possession and vesting in him the legal title.

No finding of facts appears in the record.

Parsons, for plaintiff in error.

1. The instrument of writing between Huckstep and Vaughn was inadmissible. It was not acknowledged, and consequently could not legally be admitted to record, so as to give constructive notice of title. Nor was it shown that Tracy, prior to his purchase and reception of the deed from Huckstep, had any knowledge of the existence of such an instrument. (R. C. 1845, tit. Conveyances, § 42, p. 226; Popham v. Baldwin, 2 Jones, Exch. 320.) 2. The third instruction of defendant should have been given. Bare possession, without any other evidence, direct or circumstantial, is not notice of title. (8 Mo. 19, 149; ib. 303; 14 Serg. & Raw. 333; 1 Hare, 52; 3 Paine, 421, and authorities there cited.)

J. W. Morrow, for defendant in error, that actual possession was notice to all the world of title, cited 4 Mo. 62; 4 N. Hamp. 404; 2 Verm. 544; 1 Littell, 350; 4 Dana, 264; 4 B. Monroe, 466; Landes v. Brant, 10 How. U. S. R. 348; 7 Watts, 384; 16 Ves. 249.

LEONARD, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

The question made by this case is, whether possession of real property under an unregistered deed, is actual notice to a subsequent purchaser, within the meaning of our registry acts.

In order that we may put a correct interpretation upon these words, it may not be improper to refer to the state of the law upon this subject when the act was passed. The words of the lawgiver tacitly refer to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, and we must read them in connection with those circumstances, in order to put a sensible construction upon them. After courts of equity had established their jurisdiction in enforcing the specific performance of contracts for the purchase of real property, they did not content themselves with administering a mere personal equity against the seller, but went yet further, and recognized not only the personal obligation on the part of the seller to transfer the legal title, but an interest in the buyer in the land sold, constituting an equitable ownership on his part, as contradistinguished from the legal ownership which remained in the seller. When, therefore, a contest arose between these two species of ownership for superiority, the courts laid down the principle that the latter should give way to the former, except in the hands of a purchaser for value without notice. The effect of this was, that a valid contract of purchase bound not only the seller, but also the land--not only in the hands of himself and of his heirs, and voluntary grantees, but also in the hands of a purchaser for value, whose conscience was affected by notice of the existing equitable right of the first purchaser. Now as it is a rule not only of morals, but also of public policy, that every one should use his own property and conduct his own affairs, with proper prudence, so as not to hurt his neighbor, and that those who should fail to do so ought to answer for any damage they might occasion, the courts held that the equitable ownership should prevail, not only against a purchaser with actual notice, but also against one who bought under such circumstances as would have afforded him notice had he used proper care in making the purchase, and the distinction was thus made in English equity between actual and implied notice. The former was actual knowledge or information; and the latter, facts and circumstances, not amounting to knowledge or information, from which the law conclusively presumed notice, and which it would not allow to be contradicted by contrary evidence. Actual notice, like any other fact, might be proved by direct evidence, or inferred from the facts and circumstances of the transactions; but however proved, whether by direct evidence, or inferred from other facts, it was actual notice, and clearly distinguishable from implied notice, which was the notice the law imputed to a party under certain circumstances, and which it would not allow to be contradicted, no matter how the fact might be; in other words, implied notice seems to be a “““ presumptio juris et jure,” grounded upon the facts and circumstances relied upon for that purpose. (2 Sug. on Vendors, 278; Plumbe v. Flintt, 2 Anst. 438; Kennedy v. Green, 3 My. & K. and 2 Lead. cas...