Court Opinion

ID: 9808430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:38:00.12591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:05.007100
License: Public Domain

Walker, J.,
dissenting: I am unable to concur with the majority in the opinion that Mrs. Stone is not estopped by the judgment directing a sale of the land, at least to the extent that it may be required to pay her husband’s debts. It was surely adjudicated in this proceeding by solemn judgment, which she had the clear right and opportunity to prevent if it illegally deprived her of her right of dower, that the lands should be sold to pay the debts and to the extent that it was necessary to sell for this purpose she is estopped by her failure to assert that right in due and proper time. She failed to do so, and now proposes to controvert what was decided and to claim her dower before the debts are paid. She is disputing now the very question then decided, that the land should be sold and out of the proceeds of sale that the debts be paid. Is is an estoppel by record, or res judicata, within the principle stated in Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U. S., 351, and assuredly is so under the case of Armfield v. Moore, 44 N. C., 157, where land was partitioned, and it turned out after judgment that one of the tenants in common owned one-third of the land in another’s right (en aider droit). This Court held that the judgment estopped as to this right, as it should have been asserted and passed upon before judgment entered. The Court said that “when a fact is decided in a court of record, neither of the parties shall be allowed to call it in question and have it tried again at any time thereafter so long as the judgment or decree stands unreversed.” And again: “In a civil suit, if a fact be agreed on by the *274parties, or be found by a verdict, and tbe court acts tbereon and pronounces a judgment or decree, neither party can be afterwards beard to gainsay that fact so long as tbe judgment or decree stands unreversed. An allegation of tbe discovery of important evidence after tbe admission or trial, or a suggestion that tbe party made tbe admission of record under a mistake as to bis rights, cannot be listened to without upsetting tbe whole administration of tbe law as a system and reducing it to a mere arbitrary and despotic proceeding, by which tbe court in each case, according to its view of tbe circumstances, may see fit to decide in tbe one way or the other.”
There is no suggestion of fraud or mistake in this case and no other equitable claimant. It is a proceeding at law, and in permitting Mrs. Stone to have dower in tbe land before tbe debts are fully paid we are simply, in my opinion, reversing what was decided by tbe Court when, upon consideration, it decreed a sale to pay debts. Whether she can have dower if there' is more than enough land to pay tbe debts and proper costs and expenses, or whether, upon tbe facts, she is entitled to dower at all, I need not say.
Tbe case of Latta v. Russ, 53 N. C., 111, is not an authority favoring tbe conclusion of tbe Court, but, I think, is rather tbe other way. Tbe right of tbe widow was put in issue because tbe court ordered all of tbe land to be sold if necessary to pay debts, and that, of course, included tbe dower, if any such right or estate existed. All interests were directed to be sold, as nothing was excepted. In Latta v. Russ, this Court simply held that there'was no estoppel as to tbe amount of tbe debts, for that was not in issue, and this was correct; but it did not say there was no estoppel as to all rights that were included in tbe order of sale. Tbe court decided that there were debts without it being necessary to say bow many or bow much indebtedness. It did decide that “it was necessary to sell,” and as to that part of tbe decree, said tbe court, there was an adjudication which estopj>ed. That is our case.