Court Opinion

ID: 9529854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:54:51.286631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:55.809447
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
concurring in judgment but not in the court’s opinion.
The court today holds that while the United States of America, acting through the Farmers Home Administration [FHA], acquired title to lands (earlier owned by Floyd Hobbs) through a void sheriffs deed, neither Floyd Hobbs nor his grantees [collectively Hobbs] may challenge FHA’s title because (1) it has possessed the lands more than five years and (2) the terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 93(6)1 prohibit Hobbs from attacking the deed as void. I write separately to once again2 emphasize the difference between the statutory time bar whose lapse extinguishes only the remedy from that whose expiration destroys one person’s right and transfers it to another.
I
THE ANATOMY OF LITIGATION
Hobbs owned and mortgaged to the FHA and the Federal Land Bank of Wichita [Land Bank] almost 3907 acres of land in Osage County. Upon his default, FHA and Land Bank brought suit on the notes and foreclosed their mortgage lien in the property. Before an execution sale could be conducted under the foreclosure decree, Hobbs declared bankruptcy and on September 17, 1985 an automatic (bankruptcy) stay took effect.
While the stay was in force, the land was sold to FHA at sheriffs sale. On December 17, 1985, the sale was confirmed and a sheriffs deed was recorded in January 1986. FHA has been in open, notorious and exclusive possession of the premises since January 3,1986.
In 1988 Hobbs quitclaimed 320 acres of the foreclosed tract to Melvin L. Reed. After this conveyance, FHA sought Hobbs and Reed’s assistance — which was refused — in clearing title to the premises. FHA brought this suit to quiet its title in October 1991. Hobbs counterclaimed and sought summary judgment, alleging that FHA’s deed is void because the sheriff sale — by which FHA’s title was acquired — was conducted in violation of the bankruptcy court’s automatic stay. FHA asserted (a) Hobbs’ counterclaim was time barred and (b) it held title to the premises by adverse possession conferred by the terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 93.3 After denial of Hobbs’ counterclaim, summary judgment went to FHA The Court of Appeals affirmed the nisi prius decision. This court granted Hobbs’ petition for certiorari.
II
WHILE HOBBS HAS A VIABLE REMEDY UNDER 12 O.S.1991 § 2013(C), HE HAS LOST THE TITLE TO THE PREMISES AND HENCE CANNOT PREVAIL
At nisi prius Hobbs’ argued in support of his counterclaim that, because the execution *345sale at which FHA bought his land was conducted in violation of the automatic bankruptcy stay, FHA’s title, which rests on a void sheriffs deed, must fail. FHA claimed in defense that since Hobbs’ counterclaim was first brought more than five years after FHA’s deed was recorded, it stands barred by the terms of § 93(1).4 FHA’s position cannot be sustained. Hobbs’ counterclaim is not untimely. Where, as here, the counterclaim advanced by a defendant arises out of the same transaction as the plaintiffs claim, it is not time barred even though it was extinguished when the plaintiffs petition was filed.5
While Hobbs has a viable remedy, he cannot prevail against FHA’s title by prescription. The latter party interposed its adverse possession offensively by invoking § 93(l)’s prescriptive period (of five years) as a basis for its title, which is superior to that pressed by Hobbs. NOT ALL LEGAL TIME BARS ARE CREATED TO BE EQUAL. While at common law adverse possession could be used only defensively — to bar the true owner’s recovery (of possession) — this is not true in Oklahoma. The provisions of § 93, when read in conjunction with those of 60 O.S.1991 § 3336 not only bar the dispossessed person’s remedy but also confer upon the occupant title to the premises by prescription.7 In short, by the terms of § 333 the provisions of § 93(1) & (6)8 stand transmogrified into a right-conferring time bar on whose lapse title to the land becomes vested in the adverse possessor — FHA in this case. Hobbs was left with a bare remedy, sans the critical right that must accompany it.
Ill
SUMMARY
For waging forensic combat in the adversary arena of the common-law system, a litigant (like Hobbs) must be armed with both an effective remedy (remedium9) and a live right (the common law’s dreit, droit, or ius maius10). The two components have to coexist and each has to stand as an efficacious force. A dead right cannot be revived by a viable remedy any more than a viable right may ever be vindicated by an extinguished remedy.11 Hobbs loses today’s battle because his was but a bare remedy — one that may not be attached to a live right. A still-unexpired remedy to redress a statutorily destroyed right in one’s title to land does not a blueprint for forensic victory make. The right, once dead, lies beyond the remedy’s capacity to resurrect.12
Although Hobbs’ counterclaim was indeed timely brought, he had no legally cognizable right to be vindicated. I hence concur in affirming the trial court’s judgment for FHA, but recede from today’s pronouncement.

.The pertinent terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 93 are:
"Actions for the recovery of real property, or for the determination of any adverse right or interest therein, can only be brought within the periods hereinafter prescribed, after the cause of action shall have accrued, and at no other time thereafter:
* * * * * *
(1) An action for the recovery of real properly sold on execution ... within five (5) years after the date of the recording of the deed made in pursuance of the sale or proceeding....
******
(6) Numbered paragraphs (1) ... shall be fully operative regardless of whether the deed or judgment or the precedent action or proceeding upon which such deed or judgment is based is void or voidable in whole or in part, for any reason, jurisdictional or otherwise_”

. See Cruse v. Atoka County Bd. of Com’rs, Okl., 910 P.2d 998, 1006 n. 9 (1995) (Opala, J., dissenting).

. For the pertinent terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 93, see supra note 1.

. For the pertinent terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 93(1), see supra note 1.

. See 12 O.S.1991 § 2013(C), whose pertinent terms are:
"Where a counterclaim and the claim of the opposing party arise out of the same transaction or occurrence, the counterclaim shall not be barred by a statute of limitation notwithstanding that it was barred at the time the petition was filed.... ”

. The terms of 60 O.S.1991 § 333 are:
"Occupancy for the period prescribed by civil procedure, or any law of this State as sufficient to bar an action for the recoveiy of the property, confers a title thereto, denominated a title by prescription, which is sufficient against all." [Emphasis mine.]

. Stolfa v. Gaines, 140 Okl. 292, 283 P. 563, 568 (1930).

. For the pertinent terms of 12 O.S.1991 § 93(1) and (6), see supra note 1.

. In medieval legal Latin parlance remedium means relief or remedy. W.C. Burton, Legal Thesaurus p. 927 (1980).

. See Cruse, supra note 2 at 1006 n. 9.

. Resolution Trust Corp. v. Greer, Okl., 911 P.2d 257, 264-265 (1995).

. Stolfa, supra note 7 at 567-570; Cruse, supra note 2 at 1006 n. 9. See also Opala, Praescriptio Temporis and Its Relation to Prescriptive Easements in the Anglo-American Law, 7 Tulsa L.J. 107, 108-109 (1971).