Watson v. Peebles

• Decision Date: 14 October 1912
• Docket Number: 15,639
• Citation: 102 Miss. 725,59 So. 881
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: MRS. MARY JEPTHA WATSON v. W. B. PEEBLES ET AL

59 So. 881

102 Miss. 725

MRS. MARY JEPTHA WATSON v. W. B. PEEBLES ET AL

No. 15,639

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 14, 1912

APPEAL from the chancery court of Lowndes county, HON. J. F. MCCOOL Chancellor.

Suit by Mary Jeptha Watson against W. B. Peebles. From a decree dismissing the petition, plaintiff appeals.

In April, 1902, the appellant, who was then Mary Jeptha Harris filed a petition, by her mother and next friend, in the chancery court, alleging that she was then eighteen years of age, and that it was to her best interest that she be made of age for the purpose of conveying certain real estate owned by her. The petition was granted--the decree reciting that her disabilities "are removed to this extent, and no further; that is to say, that she may sell and execute a good and valid binding conveyance." etc. The decree further ordered that the sale be for cash, or, if not for cash, then the purchaser should execute a deed of trust to secure the unpaid purchase money, and the proceeds of the sale should be turned over to her guardian (her mother). The property was sold to her brother, J. B. Harris, who executed a deed of trust to secure the unpaid purchase money. Afterwards, before she became of age, she executed written authority to the trustee in this deed of trust to cancel same, reciting that "same having been fully paid." The trustee thereupon canceled the deed of trust. Her guardian, in reporting to the chancery court, charges herself with the full amount of the purchase money; her account showing that it had been paid. Afterwards J. B. Harris executed a deed of trust on the property to W. B. Peebles to secure a note given by him. Peebles assigned the note and trust deed to the First State Bank.

Five years after appellant became of age and had married, she filed a petition in the chancery court, making Peebles, the bank, her brother, J. B. Harris, and the trustee in the instrument executed by her brother, parties defendant. The prayer of the petition was to cancel defendant's claim to the property as a cloud upon her title, with the alternative prayer that the property be chancellor dismissed her petition, and she appeals.

Decree reversed and cause remanded.

Z. P Landrum, for appellant.

In our view there is only one question in this case, and that is whether anything short of actual payment of the purchase money will estop complainant from asserting title. We do not think that the defense of bona fide purchaser for value can possibly be a defense to this suit. We do not think that all the niceties of notice cut any figure in the case. Defendants had notice that they were dealing with a minor's property and should have pursued every avenue of investigation which such knowledge opened to them. It was not enough that they should consult the record. The duty was upon them to go further and ascertain as a fact beyond question that the purchase money had in fact been paid. The testimony of the guardian and the complainant shows that, despite the record not one dollar has ever been paid to this minor for this property. Further investigation on the part of the defendant's would have developed this fact. They are chargeable with actual knowledge of every fact which reasonable and diligent investigation would have revealed. As I have said they had knowledge that their hands were laid upon a minor's property, and having this knowledge they are justly chargeable with the knowledge of every fact of which the knowledge of minority should have put them upon inquiry.

But, as I have said, independently of questions of notice of the niceties of this equitable question, I maintain that nothing short of actual payment of the purchase money of this property to this minor will constitute an estoppel against her. The condition of minority would indeed be something woeful to contemplate if it were legally possible to divest a minor's interest in realty by any such hocus pocus arrangement as was carried out in this case.

Consider the case a moment. I leave my infant child a home in my anxiety to shelter it as much as may be against the storms of adversity and want. While still a minor, my wife and adult sons for purposes of their own, conceive the plan of divesting the interest of this infant child in its home, and devoting the money value thereof to purposes alien to the interests of the infant. In order to do this it is necessary to remove the disabilities of minority of this child, and give it power to convey at the behest of its mother and adult brothers the whole property to one of the brothers. This is done, and there is a formal decree in which the interests of the child are safeguarded, it appears, in providing that the sale shall either be for cash, or the purchase money secured by trust deed on the property. Afterwards my wife, as guardian of my infant child, acknowledges that she has actually received the cash in payment of purchase price, and the infant child is persuaded to give written authority to the trustee to cancel the trust deed, which is done, and the property passes forever from the infant, except for the intervention of the court of equity. Can it be pretended that in equity and good conscience such a transaction should stand?

Under the statute, not now in the Code, administrators formerly were allowed to sell the land of decedents, but the statute safeguarded the interests of creditors and distributees by providing, just as this decree provided, that all such sales should either be for cash, or a trust deed taken on the property to secure the purchase money, and under this statute it has been decided that nothing short of actual payment, as provided by the statute, would entitle creditors and distributees to set up their interests in the land conveyed. Upshaw v. Gibson, 53 Miss.; 48 Miss. 255; Hogatt v. Wade, 10 S. & M. 143; Elliott v. Connell, 5 S. & M 91.

William Baldwin, for appellee.

Here we have a trust deed payable to Mrs. Watson, who alone could order the trustee to mark it satisfied; and she does what? She gives the trustee express written instruction to mark it satisfied, and not content with that instruction gives her reason for it, "it has been paid," and moreover now tells the court that "she did it to help her brother."

Here is an open, avowed statement of facts, made for the accomplishment of an admitted purpose, "to help her brother," and that purpose having been served, now tells the court that statement was not true. A stronger case of open, admitted wrong cannot be found in the books.

But to return to our supreme court: The later case of Ferguson v. Bobo, 54 Miss. 127:

"Two principles, equally ancient and well settled with respect to the contracts and liabilities of infants, and which as abstractly stated seems not antagonistic, have found in practice to produce two conflicting lines of decision, which it is difficult to reconcile, or rather it is difficult to determine satisfactorily where one ends and the other begins. 1st: The contracts of infants except for necessaries with which they have not been supplied by their guardians, impose no liability upon them which is not voidable at their election. 2nd: Infancy is a shield and not a sword, and cannot be set up to defeat liability for torts, trespass and frauds."

This court after discussing how the courts of law deal with this question, then turns to its treatment in the courts of equity and on page 133 of 54 Miss. we find, "Turning from courts of law to those of equity, we find the law of estoppel, as applicable to the contracts of infants, on a much more satisfactory and clearly defined footing. From the earliest times it has been held that infants...