Court Opinion

ID: 9725401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:45:41.89823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:14.891652
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing.
MORRIS, Chief Justice.
The respondent has petitioned for a rehearing and additional briefs have been filed. From the cases cited and statements of counsel, it appears that there may be a misapprehension concerning the scope of our opinion. We would emphasize the fact that at the time Caroline Messersmith signed and delivered the deed to Herbert B. Smith, Jr., she had no title to convey. Smith therefore obtained no title to convey to E. B. Seale who, as grantee of Smith, claims to be an innocent purchaser. The title had already been conveyed to Frederick Messersmith. The deed to Smith had never been acknowledged and was therefore not entitled to be recorded, although it bore a certificate of acknowledgment in regular form. Seale, whose grantor had no title, seeks through the operation of our recording statutes to divest Frederick Messersmith of the true title and establish a statutory title in himself.
We are here dealing with a prior unrecorded valid and effective conveyance that is challenged by a subsequent purchaser to whom no title was conveyed and who claims that the recording laws vest title in him by virtue of a deed that was not acknowledged in fact and therefore not entitled to be placed of record. This situation differs materially from a case where an attack is made by a subsequent purchaser on a prior recorded deed which actually conveyed title to the grantee but was not entitled to be recorded because of a latent defect. The questions presented by the latter situation we leave to be determined when they arise.
The petition for. rehearing is denied.
SATHRE, GRIMSON, BURKE, and CHRISTIANSON, JJ., concur.