Woodlawn Realty & Development Co. v. Hawkins

• Decision Date: 22 April 1914
• Docket Number: 636
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: WOODLAWN REALTY & DEVELOPMENT CO. v. HAWKINS et al.

65 So. 183

186 Ala. 234

WOODLAWN REALTY & DEVELOPMENT CO. v. HAWKINS et al.

No. 636

Supreme Court of Alabama

April 22, 1914

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

Bill by the Woodlawn Realty & Development Company against J. David Hawkins and others. From a decree sustaining a demurrer to the bill, complainant appeals. Reversed, rendered, and remanded.

Frank S. White & Sons and Carmichael & Wynn, all of Birmingham, for appellant.

John C Forney, of Birmingham, for appellees.

GARDNER J.

Appellant filed its original bill against the respondents, seeking a correction of description of the property in a certain deed executed by Samuel L. Hawkins to one L.S. Brown on August 10 1885. Upon demurrer to the original bill being sustained, the bill was amended; its chief purpose, as before, being the reformation of said deed. The chancellor sustained the demurrer to the bill as amended, and from this decree the appeal is prosecuted.

All of the respondents save one (Burr Nabers) are devisees under the will of the said Samuel L. Hawkins, the bill alleging that any interest said respondents may have in the said property is by virtue of said will.

It is further averred that the said respondent S.W. Hawkins, one of said devisees, in the year 1912 executed a conveyance to the respondent Burr Nabers, conveying his interest in said land by a proper description thereof, as is set forth in the second paragraph of the original bill, and that on September 24, 1912, said Nabers brought an action of ejectment against complainant for the recovery of said property, which action is still pending.

It is further averred that the said Nabers bought his interest in said land and took said deed thereto with full notice of complainant's claim and equities in and to the same. As incidental to the relief of reformation sought, complainant seeks an injunction against the further prosecution of the ejectment suit. The bill as amended also alleges possession on the part of the complainant, and seeks to quiet the title to the property.

A correct description of the property is alleged to be in the second paragraph of the original bill, and the description, together with the mistake, is shown with more detail by paragraph 4-A of the amended bill, a plat of the property being attached to the amended bill, and marked Exhibit 5.

The bill shows that the mistake in the description was mutual, as between said Hawkins and said Brown, and that it occurred in the drafting of the deed as a mistake either by the scrivener or by the surveyor who furnished the description, but that the land described in paragraph 2 of the bill was, in truth and in fact, that which was purchased by said Brown from said Hawkins, and was that which was sought to be described in the deed.

By numerous and successive conveyances, it is alleged, complainant has become the owner of said property, and all of said successive conveyances have copied the mistake made in said deed from Hawkins to Brown; and it is averred that the complainant is invested with all the rights, legal and equitable, which were created in the said L.S. Brown by reason of said transaction and deed.

In paragraph 4-B of the amended bill is the following averment: "Orator further shows that the said parcel of land described in paragraph 2 of the bill was identical parcel of land intended to be conveyed to orator by the deed from which orator derived title to the same, and that it was mutually intended by the respective grantors and grantees that in each of the conveyances in the chain of title from said Samuel L. Hawkins to the said L.S. Brown the said land described in paragraph 2 should be conveyed, and that in each of said instances the grantees intended to buy the said parcel of land."

Where a mistake occurs in a series of conveyances, the last vendee may have the deed corrected. Tillis v. Smith, 108 Ala. 264, 19 So. 374; Goulding Fertilizer Co. v. Blanchard, 59 So. 485; Jackson v. Lucas, 157 Ala. 51, 47 So. 224, 131 Am.St.Rep. 17; 6 Pom.Eq.Jur. § 678.

The above authorities are to the effect that relief will be granted the last vendee, when the same mutual mistake has been repeated in each link of a chain of titles, and this was emphasized in the recent case of Jackson v. Lucas, supra. By the Acts of 1911, p. 199, the Legislature has prescribed the following: "That any person claiming title to land directly or remotely from the grantee in a deed, mortgage or other conveyance, containing an erroneous description shall be authorized and entitled to maintain a bill in a court of chancery or other court exercising equity jurisdiction, for the reformation of such deed, mortgage, or other conveyance, and shall be entitled to relief in all cases in which the grantee in the deed, mortgage, or other conveyance, containing an erroneous description would be entitled to relief.

"Sec. 2. That in order to authorize a person claiming title under the grantee in a deed, mortgage or other conveyance containing an erroneous description to maintain a bill for the reformation of the same, it shall not be necessary that there shall be any error in description in all the conveyances constituting the chain of title from the grantor in the conveyance containing the erroneous description to the complainant; but if it shall reasonably appear that it was the purpose or intention of each grantor to convey the land which was intended to be conveyed in said deed, mortgage or other conveyance containing the erroneous description, the complainant shall be entitled to a reformation of such deed, mortgage or other conveyance."

Many of the assignments of demurrer attack the bill as amended, upon the grounds that the facts of each successive attempt to correctly convey the property are not fully set out; that it is not shown who are the successive grantors and grantees in the alleged chain of title, nor in what manner the mistake between each said grantor and grantee was made; that the bill as amended does not state sufficient facts going to show that the same mutual mistake was made by and between each successive grantor and grantee in the chain of title.

It is apparent from the reading of section 2 of the above act of the Legislature that, to now maintain a bill of this character, it is no longer necessary that the same mutual mistake as to description shall have occurred in each successive deed in the chain of title; but it is provided that, if it shall reasonably appear that it was the purpose or intention of each grantor to convey the land which was intended to be conveyed in the conveyance containing the erroneous description, the complainant shall be entitled to relief.

By section 1 of said act it was provided that relief should be had by one claiming title to land directly or remotely from the grantee in the conveyance containing the erroneous description, in all cases in which the grantee in the conveyance containing such erroneous description would himself be entitled to relief.

This act was approved April 15, 1911, and the original bill in this case was filed October 16, 1912. It is argued that this act can have no bearing on this case. In this view we cannot concur. In the case of Goulding Fertilizer Co. v. Blanchard supra, this court held that said act was not applicable to pending suits, by reason of section 95 of our Constitution. Nothing stated in that opinion could be said to lead to an indication that the act would not apply to suits subsequently brought. Its purpose was to do away with the necessity of proof of mutual mistake in each and every link of the chain of title, in order to establish such privity of title on the part of the complainant as to authorize the suit. The rule that for such privity of title there must be shown the same mutual mistake in each link in the chain of title was a rule established by the courts, and its enforcement doubtless sometimes worked a hardship. The vendee is interested in perfecting his chain of title. His remedy, on a warranty in a deed, would often be of little value, and the Legislature recognized the injustice that would result oftentimes by the application of this rule. Jackson v. Lucas, supra. The effect of the statute is simply to abrogate the court-made rule, and establish in its stead a legislative-made rule. We are of the opinion that it was a matter within the scope and authority of the...