Wadley v. Leggitt

• Decision Date: 25 March 1907
• Citation: 101 S.W. 720
• Parties: WADLEY v. LEGGITT.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 720

101 S.W. 720

WADLEY v. LEGGITT.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

March 25, 1907.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Greene County; Allen Hughes, Judge.

Action by Mrs. E. A. Wadley against I. C. Leggitt. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

W. S. Luna and Johnson & Huddleston, for appellant. J. D. Block and F. H. Sullivan, for appellee.

McCULLOCH, J.

This is an action in ejectment, instituted in the circuit court of Greene county by appellant against appellee to recover a tract of land in that county, and the cause was tried by the court sitting as a jury. The parties claimed title from a common source. The land in controversy was formerly owned by one Thomas Tolbert, who died intestate, and both parties claim title under conveyances from his heirs. The plaintiff, Mrs. Wadley, alleges that the Tolbert heirs conveyed the land to one Miller, but that the deed was lost, and the record thereof had been destroyed by fire, with all the other records of Greene county; that Miller died owning the land; and that she purchased from his heirs. Appellee denied that the Tolbert heirs ever conveyed to Miller, and alleged that they conveyed to his grantor, Rowland; but appellant introduced testimony tending to establish the fact that said heirs conveyed the land to Miller before the date of their conveyance to Rowland, and that Rowland had knowledge of the previous conveyance to Miller. Appellee also pleaded adverse possession for seven years before the commencement of this action, and also pleaded in bar of appellant's right of action a decree of the chancery court of Greene county in favor of appellee's grantor, Rowland, rendered in a suit brought by Rowland against appellant to quiet his title to the land. The record in the Rowland suit was introduced in evidence, and it appears therefrom that the chancery court at the November term, 1899, rendered a decree in favor of Mrs. Wadley; that Rowland appealed to this court; that this court on March 7, 1903, reversed the decree of the chancellor, with directions to enter a decree for the appellant therein in accordance with the opinion of the court (Rowland v. Wadley, 71 Ark. 273, 72 S. W. 994); and that on November 3, 1903, the chancery court, pursuant to the mandate of this court, entered a final decree in favor of Rowland, awarding the lands to him. Appellant claimed title, as above stated, under deeds from the Miller heirs, and it was admitted by appellee in the trial below that said deeds (two of them) were executed on October 15, 1903, by the Miller heirs to appellant. The court, without making a finding upon the other issues in the case, found from the evidence adduced that the issues in the case were adjudicated, in the former suit of Rowland v. Wadley, in favor of Rowland, and that appellant's right of action was barred by that adjudication. Judgment was entered accordingly.

The only question presented, therefore, by this appeal, is whether the evidence sustains the finding of the court on that issue, as no other issue was passed upon by the court. It will be seen from the foregoing recital that the appellant, Mrs. Wadley, acquired the alleged Miller title under which she now claims subsequent to the adjudication in the Rowland suit in chancery. That suit was decided by this suit in favor of Rowland in March, 1903, the mandate of the court was filed in chancery court and decree thereon entered in November, 1903, and Mrs. Wadley acquired the Miller title on October 15, 1903. It is plain, therefore, that the title under which Mrs. Wadley now claims was not, and could not have been, adjudicated in that suit. In that suit she claimed an entirely different chain of title. She claimed title under a conveyance to her ancestor, executed by the widow of Thomas Tolbert. That chain of title was decided...