Court Opinion

ID: 9830888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:35:43.641019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:28.051988
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[5, 6] After considering the question further, we think the conclusion reached that the lumber company, because of the recitals in the deed from Abel Boles to Elizabeth Lout and from the latter to Huntington, could not be heard to say it did not have notice of the conveyance from Abel Boles to Sarah Haley was erroneous. It would have been correct had it appeared that the title of the lumber company to the land in controversy depended on either of those deeds. But neither of them was a link in the lumber company’s chain of title to that land, and therefore the rule invoked in disposing of the question did not apply. 2 Devlin on Deeds, and authorities cited in note 3, p. 1891. As the recitals in the deeds referred to did not operate as an estoppel against the lumber company, it had a right to show it did not as a matter of fact have notice of the conveyance to Sarah Haley. The question, therefore, simply was one as to the sufficiency of the testimony it relied on to show lack of notice to support the finding involved in the judgment that it did not have notice. We cannot say that testimony was not sufficient to support the finding. The witness Pickering, who was the lumber company’s vice president, treasurer, and general manager at the time it purchased the land of Downs, and who acted for. it in making the purchase, testified that he nor any one acting for said company did not know of the existence of the conveyance to Sarah Haley, and that he had never heard from any source of the existence of such a conveyance until after the lumber company purchased the land in controversy. This testimony, it seems to us, must be said to have authorized the finding it must be assumed the court made, that the lumber company did not have notice of the conveyance to Sarah Haley. If it did au*600thorize such a finding, then we must treat it as binding on us and establishing the contention made that the lumber company was entitled to protection as an innocent 'purchaser of the land in controversy. If it was entitled to such protection, then the judgment rendered by the court below was not erroneous, and we erred in setting same aside. Therefore the motion will be granted, and the judgment of the court below will be affirmed.