Opinion ID: 1758518
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: were the affirmative defenses established?

Text: The special demurrer raised the affirmative defenses of limitations of actions, laches and bona fide purchaser for value. The motion to dismiss raised the affirmative defenses of res judicata, laches and estoppel. Appellees' principal argument in support of the decree dismissing the bill of review deals with their contention that the bill of review was barred because it was not filed within two years after the final decree in the partition case. Section 11-21-35 Mississippi Code Annotated (1972) provides, among other things, that a decree in a partition case is conclusive of the rights of all parties to the suit subject to bills of review as in other suits. Section 11-5-121 Mississippi Code Annotated (1972) provides that bills of review in chancery shall be filed within two years next after the date of the final decree in the cause, and not after. It also contains a savings clause for minors and incompetents which is not involved in this case. Section 15-1-37 Mississippi Code Annotated (1972) provides: An action shall not be brought to recover any property (a) sold by order of a chancery court, where the sale is in good faith and the purchase money paid, or (b) partited in kind or sold for partition where the purchase money is paid, unless such action is brought within two years after possession is taken by the purchaser under the sale of the property or by the taker under the decree of partition. When a demurrer to a bill raises affirmative defenses, the defensive facts upon which the demurrer is based must appear from the bill either as facts expressly stated therein or from necessary, or reasonably inescapable, or unavoidable inferences which may be drawn from the bill in favor of demurrant. Taylor, et al. v. Twiner, et al., 193 Miss. 410, 9 So.2d 644 (1942). The same rule applies to a motion to dismiss which raises affirmative defenses when the motion to dismiss is not supported by proof. The above principle is clearly enunciated in Taylor, supra, where complainants, who were brothers, inherited an undivided one-ninth interest each in 80 acres of land from their father. Their father died in 1915, and in 1917 one of their sisters instituted a partition suit resulting in the sale of the land for division of proceeds. Complainants filed their bill on June 6, 1941, to vacate the partition decree and sale thereunder, and to cancel as clouds upon their title everything done in the partition proceeding averring that, at the time of the partition proceedings, they were in the United States Army and were never served with process in the partition suit and had executed no waiver of process and had not otherwise entered an appearance therein. They further averred they had not received any part of the proceeds of sale and in fact had no knowledge that the suit had been instituted until shortly before filing the bill of complaint. In that case, the defendants separately interposed special demurrers raising the affirmative defenses of the ten year statute of limitations, the two year statute on bills of review, the defense of laches under general equity principles, and the purchasers from Twiner incorporated in their special demurrers the affirmative defense of bona fide purchaser for value. The trial court sustained the special demurrers and this Court, in reversing, stated: None of the facts as facts upon which the special demurrers could dependably rest were averred in the bill, but in order to obtain the facts upon which the special demurrers were based, these facts had to be worked out of the bill by way of inference. The special demurrers were sustained, and the complainants having declined to amend, their bill was dismissed. We think the special demurrers should have been overruled. ..... Likewise when a particular fact is necessary to be shown in order to establish an affirmative defense, that fact cannot be imported into the defensive pleading by way of inference unless the inference is necessary, inescapable, unavoidable, when reasonably considered in connection with the facts stated. Inasmuch as a demurrer to a bill must get its facts from the bill, it follows that when the demurrer raises affirmative defenses, the defensive facts upon which the demurrer is based must appear from the bill either as facts expressly stated therein or from necessary, or reasonably inescapable or unavoidable inferences which may be drawn from the bill in favor of the demurrant. ..... What is hereinabove more fully stated is evidently what was meant in the rather terse closing sentence of section 288, Griffith Miss.Chan.Prac., which we quote: While a demurrer does not admit conclusions or inferences, it may not itself be based upon any inferences or conclusions arising from a bill, but only upon the facts therein stated. This is another among the cases which continue to come to this Court on demurrer when all the facts of the case ought to have been developed under answers. We repeat what was said in Federal Land Bank v. Fidelity & D. Co., 165 Miss. 715, 721, 147 So. 917, 918: The trend of modern judicial decision is against the attempt to settle close and difficult questions of law and right on a demurrer. If the demurrer raise merely a doubtful question or if the case be such that the cause of justice will probably be promoted by a determination of the ultimate right only on answer and proof, the court ought to exercise a fair judicial discretion to that end, although it may be that in technical point, the grounds of the demurrer are sustainable in strict law. If the facts exist which would sustain the affirmative defenses urged in this case, there could be no difficulty in setting them up in answers, and we can see in the situation presented no occasion for any difficulty in proving them. Courts should not be called on in such cases to eke out the facts by the dubious and laborious process of inference, and we must decline to do so here. (193 Miss. at 418, 419, 420, 421, 9 So.2d at 645, 646, 647). None of the facts upon which the special demurrer and motion to dismiss could dependably rest were averred in the bill of complaint. We hold that the special demurrer and motion to dismiss should have been overruled. In the case before the Court, complainants alleged that one or more of them have been in possession of the land in question since the sale, and none of them have accepted the proceeds arising from the partition sale. Under section 15-1-37 Mississippi Code Annotated (1972), possession by the purchaser at a partition sale where the purchase price is paid bars recovery of the property. The question of who was in possession of the property after the partition sale is a question of fact to be determined upon proof. Appellees do not argue that the other affirmative defenses were shown in the bill of complaint so what we have said with reference to the affirmative defense of limitations of actions applies with equal force to the other affirmative defenses. The court erred in sustaining the special demurrer and motion to dismiss. In our case complainants affirmatively alleged that one or more of them have been in possession since the sale and none of them have accepted the proceeds of the partition sale.