Case Name: John M. Shrigley v. Chas. C. Black et al.; Brettun Crapster et al. v. John M. Shrigley et al.
Court: Kansas Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Kansas
Decision Date: 1903-01-10
Citations: 66 Kan. 213
Docket Number: No. 13,160; No. 13,165
Parties: John M. Shrigley v. Chas. C. Black et al. Brettun Crapster et al. v. John M. Shrigley et al.
Judges: Johnston, Gjreene, Burch, JJ., concurring.
Reporter: Kansas Reports
Volume: 66
Pages: 213–232

Head Matter:
John M. Shrigley v. Chas. C. Black et al. Brettun Crapster et al. v. John M. Shrigley et al.
No. 13,160.
(71 Pac. 301.)
No. 13,165.
(71 Pac. 301.)
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. Mortgage — Tax Deed to Mortgagor — Estoppel. A mortgagor of real estate, being under duty to his mortgagee to pay taxes on the mortgaged property, cannot defeat the mortgage by any form of a lien growing out of taxes which he has suffered to become delinquent; nor will his grantee be permitted to accomplish a like result by means of delinquent taxes, or a lien for the same, existing at the time the property was conveyed to him.
2. •-- Lien for Taxes in Ejectment — Effect of Redemption from Sale. Where a mortgagor, having executed a mortgage prior to tho enactment of the redemption law of 1893, permits the mortgaged premises to go to tax sale and deed, and where the tax deed is held invalid, as a muniment of title, in an action brought in ejectment under such deed, but the taxes paid thereunder are adjudged to be a lien on the premises and the same ordered to be sold to satisfy such lien, and where the grantee of such mortgagor redeems from such sale as provided in section 23 of the redemption law (Gen. Stat. 1901, §4949), held, that by such redemption such real estate is not freed from the lien of the mortgage; and held, further, that, if said section 23 should be applied literally to such a case, the effect would be to impair the obligation of contracts, and, hence, in so far would be unconstitutional and void. Whether section 23 would apply to any case in favor of a mortgagor or his grantee, so as to cut off the lien of a mortgage where a mortgagor had permitted a lien for taxes to accrue, is not decided.
Error from Cowley district court; William T. McBride, judge.
Opinion filed January 10, 1903.
Affirmed.
STATEMENT.
One Soranus L. Brettun died in April, 1881, leaving a will, by which he bequeathed to his wife, Margaret Brettun, a life-estate in all of his property, and to his grandchildren, Charles C. Black, Brettun Crapster, and Caroline Louise Crapster, a life-estate in the remainder, with certain exceptions as against Charles C. Black, and with fee over to the issue of Brettun Crapster and Caroline Louise Crapster, now Bangs. The widow, Margaret Brettun, and Black were appointed executors of the will. Needing money for the payment of debts of the estate, they were authorized by the probate court of Cowley county to mortgage certain real estate in the city of Winfield. They, as executors, executéd a mortgage to the Jarvis-Conklin Mortgage Trust Company to secure a note, due in three years, for the sum of $5000. This note was transferred and assigned to the plaintiff in error, John M. Shrigley. It has been renewed twice since that time, the last time on July 2, 1888, for the sum of $7000. At this time the mortgage was signed by Black and Margaret Brettun, as executors, and by Brettun Crapster and wife, and Caroline L. Bangs and husband, and contained general covenants of warranty of title in the mortgagors. Upon this mortgage and the notes secured by it, an action in foreclosure was broúght by Shrigley in 1894.
At a tax sale in 1893, the taxes for 1892 on the mortgaged property not having been paid, the same was sold, at which sale the Jarvis-Conklin Mortgage Trust Company was the purchaser. The purchaser trans ferred the certificates to Shrigley, and he to the North American Trust Company, which company, after payment of the taxes of 1893, 1894, and 1895, procured the issuance of a tax deed to it for the mortgaged property. In 1897 the trust company instituted an action in the United States circuit court for the district of Kansas in ejectment, making all of the above-named grandchildren (the widow, Margaret Brettun, having theretofore died) and the minor defendants herein, to wit, Anna Louise Crapster, Bretta Viola Crapster, the children of Brettun Crapster, and Milton A. Bangs, Margaret Bangs, Ruth Bangs, and Phillis Bangs, children of Caroline L. Bangs, they being the owners of the fee to the mortgaged property, defendants therein. Shrigley was not made a party to this action. In this ejectment action,, the tax deed was set aside, being decreed to be valueless as a muniment of title. The amount of taxes for which plaintiff therein was held to have a first lien was ascertained, and a sale decreed to satisfy the same. This sale was had and the property purchased by the plaintiff trust company, and a certificate of sale issued under the provisions of the redemption law of 1893. No redemption was had until a day or two prior to the expiration of eighteen months from the date of the sale, when the above-named minors, through their guardian, redeemed the same, paying into court for that purpose the full amount of the lien. These -minors had, prior to this, received quitclaim deeds to the property from all of the life-estate holders, so that they were at that time the owners of the entire estate therein, except as encumbered by the liens heretofore noted.
Shrigley’s action to foreclose the mortgage, commenced in 1894, was pending during all of this time in the district court of Cowley county, and, after the redemption from the sale under the tax lien by the minors, the guardian filed his supplemental answer setting up. all the proceedings in the United States court, and claimed that thereby under the provisions of section 23 of the redemption act of 1893 (Gen. Stat. 1901; §4949), Shrigley’s mortgage was defeated and the real estate wholly freed from its lien. Upon this contention the trial court held against the minors and adjudged a foreclosure of the mortgage on the interests of Brettun Crapster and Mrs. Bangs, which it decided to be a life-estate. It further held that Black had no interest in the property, by reason of his having received advancement to the full amount of his interest m the estate under the will. From this order and decree, the minors bring error to this court.
At the same time, it was contended by Shrigley that, under the peculiar terms and phraseology of the will, Margaret Brettun, the widow, took not a life-estate but a fee-simple title, or, at least, a life-estate with a power of disposal; in other'words, that her mortgage, coupled with covenants of warranty, conveyed to the mortgagee, Shrigley, not merely the life-estate belonging to her and to the grandchildren of Soranus Brettun, but the fee therein, and that he was entitled to a foreclosure not only of the life-estate, which the court gave him, but of the fee. Upon this contention the trial court held against him, and he is now here asking a reversal of that order.
H. M. Beardsley, J. E. Torrance, and A. M. Jackson, for John M. Shrigley.
Hackney & Lafferty, Q. H. Buckman, and W. P. Hackney, guardian ad litem, for the other parties to the proceedings.

Opinion:
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Cunningham, J.:
It will be seen from the above statement of facts that the first question presented for our consideration relates to the effect of the redemption by the minors owning the entire estate of the mortgaged property from the sale by virtue of the tax lien, under the decree of the United States circuit court for the district of Kansas, and of the construction which must be given to section 23 of the redemption act, under the facts of this case. That section (Gen. Stat. 1901, §4949) reads as follows:
"Real estate once sold upon order of sale, special execution or general execution shall not again be liable for sale for any balance due upon the judgment or decree under which the same is sold, or any judgment or lien inferior thereto, and under which the holder of such lien had a right to redeem within the fifteen months hereinbefore provided for."
It is contended that the mortgage lien of Shrigley was inferior to the lien decreed for taxes, and that Shrigley, as the holder of the inferior lien, had a right to redeem within fifteen months ; hence, his lien is wholly cut off by the redemption made by the minors. A literal construction of the terms of this section leads to this conclusion. We are met, however, with the reply from Shrigley that this section has no application so far as his mortgage is concerned, it having been executed prior to the passage of the act, and the claimed superior lien being for taxes which the law required the owners of the land to pay. It will not be contradicted that the makers of a mortgage cannot defeat the lien created thereby by the purchase of the premises at tax sale for taxes which they should have paid. We hold that the same rule applies to the grantees of such makers, and that the rights of the grantee in this respect cannot rise higher than those of the grantor ; that the grantee takes such grant subject to the same conditions, obligations and disabilities in this respect as those resting upon the grantor. In Jones on Mortgages, 5th edition, section 680, it is said:
"A mortgagor cannot, by acquiring a tax title upon the land, defeat the lien of the mortgagee. It is his duty to pay the taxes, and he is not allowed to acquire a title through his own default. The same obligation rests upon one who has purchased the land of the mortgagor."
In MacEwen v. Beard, 58 Minn. 176, 178, 59 N. W. 942, it was held :
"In this case, Beard, the mortgagor, was disabled to acquire a tax title that would defeat the mortgage. He could not put his grantee in any better position than he occupied himself. With respect to the mortgage as a lien on the property, the grantee stood in just the position that the grantor- had occupied."
To the same effect, see Manuel C. Jordan v. Henry D. Sayer et al., 29 Fla. 100, 10 South. 823; Porter v. Lafferty, 33 Iowa, 254; Stears v. Hollenbeck, 38 id. 550; Fair v. Brown, 40 id. 209; Fallass, Administrator, v. Pierce and others, 30 Wis. 443, 481.
This view of the law makes it clear that, had the minors in this action purchased at a tax sale made to enforce the tax lien prior to the passage of the act of 1893, such purchase would have amounted only to a payment of the taxes and an extinguishment of the lien; in other words, it would have been equivalent to the payment by the owners of the taxes. Now, if we shall hold that the owners obtained greater rights by a sale and redemption under the provisions of section 23, then it would necessarily follow that the mortgagee had lesser rights — that he had lost some thing of value, and that the act operated to impair to some extent the obligation of the contract existing at the time of its passage. To that extent, and in such a case, we must hold that section 23 is unconstitutional, inoperative, and void, and that the owners — the minor plaintiffs in error here — would take nothing thereby.
It may be doubted whether this redemption law would apply to a case of this kind, even if it affected only contracts made since its enactment, and whether the legislature, without anywise referring thereto, intended to make such an inroad upon the provisions of our tax law, and the principles with which it is buttressed by the holdings of the courts, as section 23 would if construed as plaintiffs in error suggest. To do so would be to permit the owner of mortgaged property, by allowing taxes which he ought to pay to become delinquent, and the property to go to sale and deed therefor, utterly to cut off his own mortgage by redeeming from a sale for the lien of taxes which he himself ought to have paid in the first instance. If he could not accomplish such a result directly, how could he indirectly by pursuing the method indicated in section 23 ? We are of the opinion that the court did not err in holding against the contention of the minor defendants.
The question presented by Shrigley is an interesting one. In many respects his argument is plausible. He presented the same question when this case was here before and the court held without discussion :
' ' The plaintiffs have a theory of construction of the will of Soranus Brettun under which they maintain that the land was devised to Margaret Brettun, and therefore that she, and afterward her heirs, owned it, even if she had no other source of title. The theory is not sound." [Prest v. Black, 68 Kan. 682, 686, 66 Pac. 1017.)
The question decided was material in the case. We see no adequate reason for changing our views upon the proper construction of the will as there announced, and no good to result from an elaborate discussion of its provisions.
Upon both questions, the judgment of the district court will be affirmed.
Johnston, Gjreene, Burch, JJ., concurring.
Pollock, J., not sitting, having been of counsel in the court below.