Court Opinion

ID: 9826934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 16:59:40.520937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:19.623712
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants’ attorneys, in their motion for rehearing, after a review in detail of the Texas cases cited in our opinion as authority for the proposition that those who knowingly participate in the proceedings which bring about an administrator’s sale of property belonging to a decedent, and thereafter accept the proceeds of such sale, are estopped from denying its validity, assert as a. conclusión therefrom that the proceedings in such cases were not void; that the application of the principles of estoppel was not necessary to a decision of such cases; and that whatever might have been said by the courts in regard to such matter is to be regarded as ob-iter dicta. In our original decision of the case, and in our consideration of the motion, we have not thought it necessary to determine-whether as a matter of fact the sales in the cases referred to were void or not. The opinions in several of the cases assume that the sales were void and the decisions based on this predicate. In Grande v. Chaves, 15 Tex. 551, the court said: “It does seem that such grant [that is, the grant of administration in Bexar county during the course of which the sale was made] was without legal force or effect.” And it is later announced by the court that the “controlling circumstance in this case, and which overre'ach-es the question of the validity of the grant,” were the facts which the court held sufficient to estop the plaintiffs from impeaching the title of the purchasers. In Ryan v. Maxey, 43 Tex. 195, the court said: “Whether the court in this case had or had not jurisdiction to order the sale, under the facts set up in the answer and established by the evidence, the plaintiffs were estopped from enforcing their claim to the land.” In Stafford v. Harris, 82 Tex. 178, 17 S. W. 530, the estoppel was based on facts in connection with a sale ordered by the county court, and which was held in the opinion to be void.
[4] If it be true that the courts were mistaken in the assumption of the premise of these decisions, yet the law of the case controlling the decision was announced on this assumption, and the law so announced becomes authority, and is not to be regarded as obiter dicta. C. J. vol. 15, p. 939, § 329, and authorities cited, particularly Brown v. C. & N. W. Ry. Co., 102 Wis. 137, 77 N. W. 748, 78 N. W. 771, 44 L. R. A. 586. Even if it should be admitted that these authorities are not controlling, they are strongly persuasive, particularly in view of the fact that' the same conclusions of law are stated well-considered decisions of other jurisdictions. In Deford v. Mercer, 24 Iowa, 118, 92: Am. Dec. 460, Chief Justice Dillon said:
“It will be seen that this principle of estop--pel is not limited, as contended for by the appellant’s counsel, to eases of voidable sales, but' extends to cases where the sale is void.”
*650In Smith v. Warden, 19 Pa. 424, it was said:
“The application of the principle does not depend upon any supposed distinction between a void and voidable sale. The receipt of the money [proceeds of the sale], with a knowledge that the purchaser is paying it upon an understanding that he is purchasing a good title, touches the conscience, and therefore binds the party in one case as well as the other.”
The authorities, we think, not only justify, but require, that we adhere to the conclusions as announced in our original disposition of fhe case, and the motion for re-' hearing must be overruled.