Case ID: tex_9/html/0246-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lipscomb, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Andrews and another v. Palmer and another.
    Where the sheriff, selling several tracts of land, by mistake executes deeds to two different purchasers for the same tract, the purchaser to whom the tract was knocked off may sustain an action against the sheriff and tlie other purchaser to correct the mistake. But it would be error in such a ease to correct the mistake merely so far as the plaintiff is concerned; the tract which the defendant bid off should, by the same decree, be adjudged to him.
    where a vendor and his vendee join in a suit to remove a cloud from the title, it is error to make a decree vesting and confirming the title in the vendor instead of the vendee.
    Appeal from Polk. It appeared from the record in this case that at a sheriff’s sale of t.wo hundred acres of laud, pointed out by the defendant in execution, the laud levied on was divided and offered for sale in four' lots of fifty acres each, and marked out and designated upon a map exhibited at the sale as No. 1, 2, 3, 4; that Andrews took the hhl of Phillips, to whom lot No. 1 was knocked off, as the highest bidder at the sale; and that Palmer was the highest bidder for the lot No. 2, and the land described by that number was knocked down to him at the sale; that by a mistake of tlie sheriff in making out the deeds to the purchasers, lie conveyed lot No. 2 to both Andrews, who had taken Phillip’s hid for lot No. 1, and to Palmer, who was the purchaser at the sale. This suit was brought to vacate and annul tlie deed to Andrews and to decree title to be in Palmer for the lot No. 2. It was alleged that tlie mistake was made by tlie sheriff in t.he description of the lots; and it was further alleged that Palmer had, before discovering tlie mistake, conveyed the lot No. 2, so purchased by him, to E. O. Choat. On issues made up under the direction of tlie court the jury found that lot No. (1) one was bid off by Phillips, and that lot No. 2 was bid off by Palmer, and that deeds were made by the sheriff to both Palmer and Andrews for lot No. (2) two. The decree of the court'confirmed tlie deed made to Palmer for lot No. (2) two, and vested the fee-simple to tlie laud therein conveyed in the said Palmer, and annulled and set aside tlie deed made by tlie sheriff for the same lot No. 2 to Andrews, and decreed that Andrews shall pay all costs. Andrews did not pray to have the title to lot No. 1 decreed to him in case his deed to No. 2 should be annulled.
    
      W. B. Moore and Yoakum S¡- Campbell, for appellants.
    
      B. C. Franklin, for appellees.
   Lipscomb, J.

The facts proven and found by the jury fully sustain the decree in confirming tlie deed made to Palmer, and in annulling the deed for the same land described in lot No. 2 made by the sheriff to Andrews. But it is a rule of equity jurisprudence that the final decree ¿should adjust all tlie rights of tlie several parties to tlie bill as far as it can be done. The decree seems to be wrong in this: it is set out and alleged in the petition by Palmer that he had conveyed all his right to tlie land in question to Elizabeth O. Choat, who is a co-complainant with him. The decree should have then decreed that all the title that Palmer had acquired to the land should he'vested in' Elizabeth O. Clioat. And tlie proof shows that Andrews, though not entitled to anything under the deed to him, made by mistake, was entitled on the bid of Phillips, taken by him off Phillips’ hands, to the laud described in the plat No. <1) one. Tlie decree must therefore be reversed and rendered by this court as it should' have been rendered by the court below, and the appellee, Palmer, pay the costs of this court.

Eeversed and reformed.