Court Opinion

ID: 9825904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 14:17:40.469572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:28.365665
License: Public Domain

MuCulloch, C. J., ('on rehearing). Counsel for appellant make the contention that act No. 80 of the Greneral Assembly of 1923 was repealed by a later act (No. 185) of the same session. Act No. 80 was approved on February 9, 1923, and act No. 185 was approved February 23, 1923, each containing the form of emergency clause then in vogue, and it is contended that, as the emergency clause was not attached in the manner and form required by the constitutional amendment of the year 1920, neither of the statutes went into effect until ninety days after the adjournment of the Legislature. At any rate, it is contended that, whether the statutes went into effect from the respective dates of approval by the Governor or on the same date (90 days after the adjournment of the Legislature), the first act was repealed by the last one. Act No. 80 relates solely to conveyances rendered ineffectual for non-observance of the requirements of the statute approved March 18, 1887, in regard to conveyances of homesteads; whereas act 185 relates to defects of conveyances in this regard, and also with regard to those conveyances which were defective by reason of the acknowledgments not being in conformity with the statute. It is unnecessary to decide the question whether or not the operation of the statutes was postponed, for the reason that, if act No. 80 was in operation from the time of its approval by the Governor until the approval of the later statute, defects in all deeds cured by its operation were validated and a repeal of the statute would not invalidate them. Where a deed is once validated, a repeal of the statute would not disturb the vested right. On the other hand, if it be held that the two statutes went into effect on the same date, there was no implied substitution of the last act for the first one. Act No. 80 is one which dealt with a specific subject, and, there being no express repeal, the presumption cannot be indulged that the Legislature intended to repeal it by another statute more general in its terms. It it further insisted that the curative statute is not applicable for this reason, that one of the grantors in the mortgage died before the enactment of the statute, that the dower of his widow became vested, and that such vested right could not be disturbed by the statute. The fact that the widow had become endowed does not pro-vent the statute from operating to cure the defect in the mortgage. The statute was as effective against the widow as against the husband, so far as it concerned the conveyance of the title and relinquished the homestead right. There was no vested right of the widow which averted the effect of the statute to that effect. The dower right of the widow was not affected by this statute, and the question of dower is not involved in this casé. Petition for rehearing denied.