Court Opinion

ID: 9741353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:54:04.931017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:18.753018
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The issue of sufficiency of service by publication as opposed to personal service hinges on knowledge by appellees of any claim or appearance on record of any interest or estate in the premises as described in the complaint.* I will deal with the moving parties separately.
As to the motion of appellant Boyles, I do not find the trial court’s findings of fact clearly erroneous. The trial court found that the property described in the deed, “all interest the grantors may have in all that land south of and adjacent to said Lot eight and Outlot 22 above described, beyond the river bluff,” had never been platted. That description is a nullity. It does not describe a governmental subdivision, nor any specific portion thereof. It is not even a metes and bounds description. There is absolutely nothing for a register of deeds to use to index such a description. A title examiner would have no means of ascertaining if the transfer had been made, short of reviewing every deed in the register. That hardly falls within the “reasonable means” test. The findings clearly support the trial court’s conclusion of law “that a diligent *397search of the records in the office of the Register of Deeds, County Auditor and Yankton County Treasurer’s Office [sic] could not have produced the names of E.W. Boyles or Elloween G. Boyles as property owners.”
As to the motion of appellant Biegelmeier, we have a different problem. No one argues that the County Deed conveying the property to Biegelmeier was not on record. Therefore, the trial court was right insofar as it found that the Register of Deed’s records showed that the property was still in the name of Yankton County, which incidentally was made a party to the action. The trial court erred, however, when it neglected to find that the sale of county-owned tax property was on record in the office of the County Auditor as per SDCL 10-25-29 through 10-25-39, inclusive. The conclusion of law entered on such inadequate finding was therefore unsupported. However, I have a serious problem that was raised by appellants in support of their motion before the trial court, when they included in their record a plat (Boyles Exhibit No. 1) which clearly shows that the land owned by Biegelmeier by virtue of the County Deed is not any part of the premises described in the complaint. The Biegelmeier land lies south of the centerline of an abandoned railroad siding, while the premises in question, at least in that proximity, lies north of that centerline. I do not see where Biegelmeier is prejudiced by the quiet title decision, and I find no standing whatever for him to challenge it.
I would then dispose of the other two issues raised by appellants in this manner. First, the procedural issue of entry of findings of fact and conclusions of law was not raised before the trial court. No motion was made to vacate the findings in order to give the trial court an opportunity to correct any error, if there was one. Second, the suggestion that by taking the evidence it did the trial court impliedly vacated the quiet title judgment is wholly unsupported by the record. At the motion hearing, the transcript repeatedly refers to the only issue being a question of law as to whether the proper parties were served. The trial court clearly had to take notice of the descriptions of the various parcels claimed by the parties to determine that question. I see no hint of an implied vacation of the judgment.
I would therefore affirm the order of the trial court as to both appellants.

 See SDCL 21-41-1.