Court Opinion

ID: 9809718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:22:50.883008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:00:32.984944
License: Public Domain

Stacy, C. J.,
dissenting: Is the plaintiff’s unregistered easement good , as against the defendant purchaser for a valuable consideration? The trial court answered in the negative, and I agree with him.
It is provided by G. S., 1-228, that every judgment in which the transfer of title is declared, “shall be regarded as a deed of conveyance.” *324And iñ G. S., 40-19, it is further provided that judgments in condemnation proceedings “shall be registered in the county where the land is situated.” Of course, the Connor Act, G. S., 47-18, also requires the registration of deeds of conveyance in the county where the land lies.
This was the law in 1912 when plaintiff’s predecessor in title acquired the subject easement by judgment of record in the Superior Court of Robeson County.
In 1917, it was provided by Act of Assembly, Chap. 148, Public Laws —amended by Chap. 107, Public Laws 1919 — that all persons, firms or corporations “now owning or hereafter acquiring” rights of way and easements of any character shall register the same “in the office of the register of deeds in the county where the land affected is situated”; exempting from its provisions, however, inter alia, court decrees in condemnation proceedings, “when such decrees are on record in such courts.” Willful violation of this act was made a misdemeanor. These acts were codified and brought forward in the Consolidated Statutes of 1919. C. S., 3316.
Then, in 1943, by Act of Assembly, Chap. 750, the penal provisions of this law were stricken out and the following inserted in lieu thereof:
. “No deed, agreement for right of way, or easement of any character shall be valid as against any creditor or purchaser for a valuable consideration but from the registration thereof within the county where the land affected thereby lies.”
It will be noted that this is the language of the Connor Act.
The defendant, who is a purchaser for a valuable consideration, acquired title to the property by deed dated 17 December, 1945, duly registered 29 January, 1946. This was after the Act of 1943. The judgment of condemnation, under which plaintiff claims, has never been registered in the office of the register of deeds of Robeson County.
If the requirements of registration, which existed when plaintiff’s predecessor in title acquired the subject easement in 1912, were superseded by the provisions of the Act of 1917, as declared in the Court’s opinion, then by the same token, it would seem that the exemptions in respect of registration set out in the Act of 1917, were superseded or at least modified by the amendment of 1943. Otherwise the paragraph above quoted has no meaning. Which takes precedence, the prior, or the subsequent, Act of Assembly?
Perhaps it is thought the doctrine of supersession has no application to an act which amends a subsisting statute and leaves the exemptions therein still standing. However this may be, the purpose of the 1943 amendment was to preserve the exemptions as between the original parties and to provide that thereafter easements created by court decree or otherwise should be valid as against creditors and purchasers for a *325valuable consideration only from the registration thereof. Under this interpretation, which gives effect to each and every part - of the statute, “no notice, however full and formal, will take the place of registration.” Turner v. Glenn, 220 N. C., 620, 18 S. E. (2d), 197, and cases cited.
It is a cardinal principle, in the interpretation of statutes, that the intention of the law-making body is to be gathered from the entire enactment; effect is to be given to each and every clause and provision; and conflicts are to be avoided by reconciliation, if and when this appropriately can be done within the limits of judicial construction. Board of Agriculture v. Drainage District, 177 N. C., 222, 98 S. E., 597.
It seems to be intimated, though not quite said, in the majority opinion that the statute applies only to conventional easements. If this be intended, what becomes of the twice-repeated expression “or easement of any character”? And why exempt easements by court decree from the operation of a statute which has no application to such easements ? The suggestion answers itself.
Finally, the judgment of the majority deletes the last paragraph of Gr. S., 47-27, from the statute, or renders it nugatory, and leaves the law in respect of registration of agreements for rights of way and easements of any character precisely as it was before this paragraph was added in 1943.
The fate of this last paragraph recalls Justice Brown’s quotation in Kornegay v. Goldsboro, 180 N. C., 441, 105 S. E., 187, of the epitaph on the tombstone of a little child, which seems equally appropriate here:
“If I am so soon done for,
What was I begun for ?”
My vote is to sustain the trial court’s interpretation of the statute.
Seawell, J., concurs in dissent.