Court Opinion

ID: 9536376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:58:38.630228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:23.189425
License: Public Domain

DE CONCINI, Justice
(specially concurring) .
I concur in both the result and the reasoning of the foregoing opinion. However, for the purpose of clarity I would like to amplify my reasons in respect to the disposition of assignment No. IV.
From a reading of the opinion in that particular, it may appear we are nullifying *298the effect of Sec. 52-527, A.C.A. 1939, by placing too onerous a burden on the second innocent purchaser. Such is not the case.
In this case we have two innocent purchasers, Shaw and Simpson. Shaw purchased from L. Blanton and left the cows in the latter’s possession. Had L. Blanton sold to Simpson directly, then Simpson would have prevailed both under Section 52-527, supra, and under the principle announced in our recent case of Kelsoe v. Grouskay, 70 Ariz 152, 217 P.2d 915.
Simpson, the second innocent purchaser, purchased the cattle from Sam Blanton, the brother of L. Blanton. The burden of proof then was on Simpson to show that either L. Blanton and Sam connived to defraud Simpson, or that Sam was the agent of L. Blanton and as such committed a wrong. In either case the wrongful acts would then be imputed to Shaw under Sec. 52-527, supra.
The situation is one in which the first purchaser has established his claim and title but in which the second purchaser attempts to show that the former should now be estopped to assert his claim because the first purchaser by allowing the seller to retain possession made it possible that a fraud be perpetrated against the latter. Simpson, therefore, had the burden of showing facts making it equitable to invoke the statutory rule of estoppel in his favor.
In this case the second purchaser has not affirmatively shown his chain of title from L. Blanton, who is concededly a prior possessor and from whom both Shaw and Simpson, therefore, must trace title. To hold now in favor of Simpson on his proof would be to estop Shaw on the basis of pure conjecture as to how the cows went out of L. Blanton’s possession and came into the possession of Sam Blanton.