Court Opinion

ID: 9828744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:41:10.26004+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:52.548393
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[9,10] Counsel for appellant contend that in Baldwin v. Root, cited in the original opinion, the Supreme Court has explicitly decided that an after-acquired title passes eo instanti to the grantee as effectually as if a conveyance to that effect were made and delivered. From this it is argued that, when T. J. and H. J. Easterwood purchased the interest of the appellee at the sheriff’s sale made under the judgment rendered in cause No. 977, they acquired the full legal title to all the interest owned by him in the land in controversy; and that the title so acquired immediately passed by operation of law to their vendee. We do not concur in that conclusion. Had T. J. and H. J. Easterwood, after their purchase at the sheriff’s sale, made a conveyance to their former vendee, then such vendee and those claiming under him would hold by deed,I and not by estoppel; and their rights would be determined by the principles of law which govern purchasers holding under such deeds. While there may be no difference between the legal effect of a title conveyed by deed and one acquired by estoppel, it does not follow that an estoppel will operate to transfer a title under all the conditions, where a right might be acquired by a deed. A deed will sometimes defeat an undisclosed equitable title, as when one holding property in his own name for the benefit of another conveys it to an innocent third party for value. In such an instance the real owner loses his right by force of the deed, not because the grantor properly and legally exercised a power to convey, but because the vendee purchased without notice. Manifestly, in such an instance, a fraud would be perpetrated — something the law would never do, when left to its own operation. In Schneider v. Sellers, supra, the ultimate purchaser, a corporation, was protected, upon the ground that it had taken a deed and paid value without notice of the previous fraud perpetrated by Mrs. Walker and her husband in procuring the judgment divesting the rightful owners of their interest in the property. In filling gaps in the chain of title the law, when left to its own operation, supplies the missing link only where the parties themselves should execute the proper and necessary conveyances, and have failed to do so. Kelley v. Jenness, 50 Me. 455, 79 Am. Dec. 623; Clark v. Baker, 14 Cal. 612, 76 Am. Dec. 449; 3 Wash, on Real Prop. (3d Ed.) 111. One who relies upon estoppel for an after-acquired title can have no greater right than has the grantor against whom the estoppel is claimed. Fretelliere v. Hindes, 57 Tex. 392. Again, a title of estoppel can be urged only against those who are estopped by the facts relied on. In this instance, if the rule is applicable, the estoppel is available only against T. J. and H. J. Easterwood and their privies in blood or estate. The appellee belongs to neither of those classes. He does not claim through them by descent; neither does he claim from them by deed. On the contrary, he claims in opposition to them., Hence he is not es-topped to assert his title.
The motion is overruled.