Wood v. Braxton

• Decision Date: 29 July 1892
• Citation: 54 F. 1005
• Parties: WOOD v. BRAXTON et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

54 F. 1005

WOOD v. BRAXTON et al.

United States Circuit Court, D. West Virginia.

July 29, 1892

John J Davis and H. M. Russell, for plaintiff.

John Brannon and W. Mollohan, for defendants.

GOFF Circuit Judge.

This is a motion for an injunction against the defendants restraining them from cutting and removing timber from the lands in the bill mentioned. The plaintiff alleges that he is the owner of a tract of land containing 100,000 acres, situated principally in Webster county, W. Va., known as the 'McCleary Tract.' He claims to be the sold and exclusive owner of the land, that he is in actual possession of part thereof, and that title papers under which he claims duly certified as such, are filed as exhibits, and made part of the record of this case. It is charged in the bill that the defendant 'the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, its agents and employes, are committing great waste and doing irreparable injury to said land by cutting and removing valuable timber therefrom, without authority or right so to do. ' The plaintiff represents that certain other of the defendants 'the Caperton heirs,' who then claimed to be the owners of part of said land instituted a proceeding in equity against the plaintiff and others, which involved the title to the land, and that such suit is now pending on appeal in the supreme court of the United States, and that defendants have unlawfully combined together and entered upon said land, and are removing the timber, which is alleged to be the substance and value of the land, while the appeal is pending and undecided. Plaintiff charges that if the timber is removed the land will be practically valueless, and that he will suffer irreparable injury, for which he has no adequate remedy at law.

The defendant 'the West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railroad Company' answers the bill, and claims to be the owner of the 'Caperton lands;' to have a 'good and valid title to the whole thereof, superior to all others. ' A copy of the record of said case now pending in the supreme court of the United States, entitled 'Benjamin Rich Walter Wood, Richard Wood, et al., Appellants, vs. Tamlin Braxton et al., Appellees. Appeal from the circuit court of the United States for the district of West Virginia,' is filed with the answer, and made a part of this case as an exhibit. It appears that on the 8th day of August, 1881 Tamlin Braxton and others, the heirs at law of Allen T. Caperton, deceased, commenced a suit in the circuit court of Webster county, W. Va., against the plaintiff and others, claiming title in their bill to five parcels of land, as follows: A tract, 41,171 1/4 acres, part of a tract of 153, 900 acres granted to Robert Morris by patent dated March 12, 1797, 5,000 acres granted to Abner Cloud by patent dated March 10, 1795, 2,738 acres granted to A. C. & D. B. Layne by patent dated September 1, 1851, 9,330 acres granted to Austin Hollister by patent dated November 1, 1855, and 5,938 acres granted to said Hollister by patent dated February 1, 1858. The bill alleges that by conveyances regularly made from the grantees, and duly recorded, the title to about 50,000 acres of the Robert Morris grant, and to all of the other mentioned grants, was legally vested in fee in Allen T. Caperton prior to the year 1860, and that he was the owner thereof at the time of his death, and that the lands are located in the counties of Greenbriar, Nicholas, and Webster, in the state of West Virginia. That prior to the year 1868 the title of Caperton to the land had never been questioned, and that during that year Benjamin Rich, G. P. Shreeve, and Albert Owen, with intent to defraud Caperton of his lands, entered or caused to be entered on the land books of Webster county a number of large tracts of land, among others a tract of 100,000 acres, in the name of William McCleary, and also a tract of 58,500 acres in the name of Henry Banks. That they allowed said two tracts of land to be returned delinquent for the nonpayment of the taxes assessed thereon for the year 1868, and at a sale made by the sheriff of Webster county of the lands mentioned for the delinquent taxes due thereon (on the 24th day of September, 1869) they, Rich, Shreeve, and Owen, became the joint purchasers thereof for said taxes, and that deeds for the same were made to them. That by various deeds certain portions of the lands, and certain interests therein, were conveyed to different persons, and that the defendants in that suit (the present plaintiff, Walter Wood, being one of them) claimed to have the legal title to the same, but that in fact and in law all of their deeds were inoperative, null and void, because obtained by fraud and collusion, and because of certain defects in the execution thereof, and in connection with the tax sale, which were set forth in said bill. It is not necessary, for the purposes of this motion, to examine all of the deeds, nor refer to the different persons who have claimed an interest in the lands by virtue thereof, nor mention either the reasons assigned why the deeds are void or the defense made relative thereto. This court, at this time, is not to determine the issues joined in that controversy. But it should be noted here that it is charged in the bill filed therein that the 100,000-acre tract and the 58,500-acre tract mentioned cover and include, as parts thereof, the whole of the lands as claimed by Allen T. Caperton in his lifetime, and that a portion thereof was in the possession of two of the defendants to that suit, who claimed it under contracts made with Rich and those claiming under him, and that the prayer of said bill was that the deeds to Rich and others under the tax sale, and the subsequent deeds based thereon, should be held and decreed inoperative, null and void, and that the title of the heirs of Caperton in and to the lands be quieted. On the 3d day of April, 1882, the suit was, on petition of Edward R. Wood and Walter...