Opinion
December Term, 1838.
Tenants in Common — Deed by One — Estoppel.
1. Where two persons purchase jointly from the same vendor, and enter into possession of a tract of land as tenants in common, and after a common possession of several years, execute an agreement under their hands and seals, in which they acknowledge that they hold the land as tenants in common, it cannot be permitted to either of them, or to any other person claiming under either of them, until the rights thereby acknowledged shall be divested or changed, to set that possession up as hostile to the title of his co-tenant. And in such case if one of the tenants in common convey by deed the whole land to another person, and recite in the deed that he, the vendor, had title to the whole, and the purchaser is ignorant of the tenancy in common, it will not prevent the rule of law from attaching. The estoppel applies to the purchaser by reason of his privity with and under his vendor, not because of personal ill-faith.
2. A deed for the whole land made by one tenant in common to a third person is color of title, under which a possession by the purchaser for a sufficient length of time would divest the title of his co-tenant.
3. An agreement made by two persons in possession of a tract of land under a joint purchase in which they acknowledged under their hands and seals that they were tenants in common of all the lands which they had purchased from their said vendor, estops both of them from denying that their vendor had title to the land, and also estops each from averring any antecedent matter to show that the other had no title.
4. Execution includes delivery, and when it is stated of a deed as a fact that "its execution was proved," it must be understood that such evidence was offered as established its delivery prima facie. If it were, then the production of the deed by one of the grantees accompanied with testimony of long possession under it is a very strong circumstance to confirm the prima facie proof of delivery.
5. Where an agreement was made between A and B, for the purpose of settling all controversies between them, and in which they acknowledged among other things that they were tenants in common of all the lands which they had purchased from C, a memorandum endorsed on the agreement by the parties that it was not to extend to the suit of D's heirs against B and C, "and A, as agent or attorney for said heirs," cannot be understood to except from the operation of the agreement the acknowledgment of the tenancy in common in the said land between A and B, although the suit of D's heirs, for whom A was agent, was for the same land.
(183) THIS was an action of ejectment, tried before his Honor, Judge Nash, at Rutherford, on the last spring circuit. The lessor of the plaintiff, in order to show title to the land in dispute, offered to produce in evidence a deed from one Peter Fisher to himself and one Jacob Fisher, bearing date in 1809, which deed was objected to because it had not been duly proved, as appeared from the certificate of registration. The objection was sustained by the court when the plaintiff's lessor proved its execution, and offered it in evidence as color of title, and showed a possession of the land under it from the year 1809 until 1818 or 1819; and he further offered in evidence a deed from Jacob Fisher to the defendant, executed in November, 1837, and proved the defendant to be in possession. The deed from the said Jacob to the defendant recited that the land was conveyed to said Jacob from the Marshal of this State. The deed from the Marshal referred to bore date in 1811. The plaintiff's lessor introduced also an agreement under seal between the said Jacob Fisher and himself, executed 10 April, 1817, wherein it was witnessed "that Samuel S. Ross and Jacob Fisher, both of the county of Rutherford and State of North Carolina, have mutually agreed and finally adjusted all their suits at law, and all matters and things of whatsoever nature from the beginning of the creation unto the present date, and both acknowledge the following statement to be correct and the true meaning of their settlement, to wit: The said Samuel and Jacob are to be joint owners and equally interested in all the land or tracts of land conveyed by Peter Fisher to the said Samuel and Jacob, to wit, etc," mentioning the land in controversy and other tracts. The deed from Peter Fisher to the plaintiff's lessor and Jacob Fisher was not registered till the year 1831, and it did not appear that the defendant, when he purchased from Jacob Fisher in 1827, had any knowledge of its existence. It also appeared in evidence that Peter and Jacob Fisher were in possession of the said land from the year 1804, and continued in possession until 1818, and also that the plaintiff's lessor removed from the land in 1818 or 1819 and went to South Carolina, and in the year 1831 instituted this suit.
D. F. Caldwell for the defendant.
Clingman for the lessor of the plaintiff.
It was denied on the part of the defendant that the deed from (184) Peter Fisher to the plaintiff's lessor and Jacob Fisher, bearing date in 1809, had ever been delivered, and if it had, the defendant contended that the plaintiff's lessor had by solemn acts and declarations disavowed title under it, and he offered in evidence first a bill of injunction sworn to and filed by the plaintiff's lessor in Rutherford court of equity in 1814, against Peter Fisher and others, alleging a want of title in the said Peter to the said land, and praying relief from the payment of the purchase money therefor. And to repel the effect of the compromise executed on 10 April, 1817, the defendant offered in evidence an instrument of writing executed on the same day and proved that it was executed at the same time by the plaintiff's lessor and the said Jacob Fisher, and insisted that the land in question was excluded from the compromise, and the matter left at large. The said instrument of writing was in these words: "It is hereby understood that the agreement made and concluded by Samuel S. Ross and Jacob Fisher on 10 April, 1817, respecting their controversies, is to have no effect as to the suit of Mark Bird's Heirs v. Jacob Fisher and Peter Fisher and Samuel S. Ross, agent or attorney for said heirs; said suit is to stand in as full force as though there had no agreement taken place between said parties. This is acknowledged by the parties to be our act and deed on 10 April, 1817." The defendant also offered in evidence a record from Rutherford Superior Court, from which it appeared that the plaintiff's lessor as attorney in fact for Mark Bird's heirs instituted an action of ejectment on behalf of said heirs against the said Peter and Jacob Fisher for the land in controversy in the year 1812, and prosecuted the same until 1818, and afterwards. It was also proved on the part of the defendant that the administrator of Mark Bird recovered a judgment in the year 1810 or 1811 against Peter Fisher, that the plaintiff's lessor purchased said judgment and instructed the sheriff to sell the land in question under the execution on said judgment then in his hands, and that the sheriff did so, when Jacob Fisher became the purchaser and took a deed from the sheriff, dated in 1812, which deed the defendant offered in evidence and relied on. It did not appear that the land in dispute had ever been granted by the State.
(185) For the lessor of the plaintiff it was insisted that the seven year's possession under color of title made his title a perfect one. It was also insisted for him that by the agreement aforesaid and the deed taken by defendant from Jacob Fisher, and the deed from the sheriff to Jacob Fisher in 1812, the defendant was estopped from denying that the title was out of the State and in Peter Fisher.
For the defendant it was insisted that the deed from Peter Fisher to the plaintiff's lessor and Jacob Fisher had never been delivered, and if it had that the plaintiff's lessor had disavowed title in Peter Fisher by his bill of injunction, by his prosecuting a suit as attorney in fact for Bird's heirs for said lands against said Peter and Jacob Fisher, and by his purchasing the judgment aforesaid, and causing the land to be sold by the sheriff. And it was also insisted that it was a fraud in the plaintiff's lessor to cause the land in question to be sold to satisfy his own execution, and thereby mislead and entrap an innocent purchaser. The defendant contended further that the agreement of 10 April, 1817, relied on by the plaintiff's lessor was rendered inoperative as to the land in dispute by the other agreement executed at the same time, and that at most it could only raise an equity, and could not operate as an estoppel; that as the plaintiff's lessor had introduced the deed from Jacob Fisher to the defendant, which recited that said Jacob claimed under a deed and sale made by the Marshall for taxes, such recital was evidence for the defendant and showed that said Jacob did not claim under either Peter Fisher or the plaintiff's lessor; that a seven year's possession under color of title without showing a grant from the State would not ripen an imperfect title into a perfect one; and that as to the sheriff's deed he, the defendant, was not estopped, as he claimed under both creditor and purchaser.
His Honor charged the jury that delivery was essential to every deed, but that when a deed was produced by him to whom it purports to have been made, the presumption of law was that it was rightfully in his possession, and threw upon the party denying its delivery to show by sufficient evidence that it never had been delivered. That if in this case the defendant had satisfied them that the deed from Peter Fisher to the plaintiff's lessor Ross, and Jacob Fisher never had been (186) delivered, they would lay it aside altogether in the consideration of the case, that if, on the contrary, they should be satisfied from the evidence that it had been delivered, then the plaintiff's lessor and Jacob Fisher became tenants in common, and each was estopped to deny title in Peter Fisher so far as the other was concerned, and that the estoppel extended to all claiming under them. That possession under the deed from Peter Fisher for seven years ripened the title into a good and valid one, and rendered it unnecessary for the plaintiff's lessor in this case to produce a grant from the State. His Honor instructed the jury further, that so far as Jacob Fisher or those claiming under him were concerned, the plaintiff's lessor was not deprived of any right which Peter Fisher's deed vested in him, by the filing of the bill in equity or the other facts relied on by defendant's counsel that the deed of agreement made in April, 1817, between the plaintiff's lessor and Jacob Fisher, if it did not operate as a common law conveyance, was an acknowledgment on the part of Jacob Fisher that the plaintiff's lessor was a tenant in common with him, at least from that time in the land mentioned in the agreement (and the land now in controversy was so mentioned) and estopped the said Jacob and all claiming under him from denying it; that as to the defeasance to that deed relied on by the defendant, it related to the suit then pending in the name of Bird's heirs against the Fisher's, and not to the land now in dispute. That as to the recital in the deed from Jacob Fisher to the defendant that the land was derived under a deed from the Marshall, that deed bore date before the compromise and agreement of 1817, and could not alter the relation in which the parties stood to each other at that time. The lessor of the plaintiff had a verdict and judgment, and the defendant appealed.
The case does not set forth the evidence which was given respecting the execution of the deed from Peter Fisher to Jacob Fisher and the lessor of the plaintiff, and therefore it is impossible for (187) us to say positively whether there is or is not error in that part of his Honor's instruction which relates to the delivery of the deed. Execution includes delivery and when it is stated as a fact that "its execution was proved," we must understand that such evidence was offered as established its delivery prima facie and until this evidence was contradicted or impeached. If it were then certainly the production of the deed by one of the grantees, accompanied with testimony of long possession under it, is a very strong circumstance to confirm the prima facie proof of delivery.
If this action had been brought against Jacob Fisher it is plain, we think, that the plaintiff would be entitled to recover. Not only had the lessor of the plaintiff and the said Jacob entered into the possession under one and the same claim of title, a deed from Peter Fisher to them as tenants in common, but on 10 April, 1817, after they had been thus in possession for more than eight years, they executed an instrument which they called an agreement under their hands and seals for the avowed purpose of settling and concluding all controversies which had theretofore existed between them, whereby they do acknowledge, declare and agree "that they, the said Samuel and Jacob, are to be joint owners and equally interested in all the land and tracts of land conveyed by Peter Fisher to the said Samuel and Jacob." It could not be permitted to either of them, holding possession after this solemn declaration, until the rights thereby acknowledged should be divested or changed, to set that possession up as hostile to the title of his cotenant. It follows, we think, that the defendant, having succeeded to Jacob Fisher's possession, and coming into that possession under him, is equally estopped from denying the right of the lessor of the plaintiff.
The declaration in Jacob Fisher's deed to the defendant that he had a title to the whole — or the ignorance of the defendant with respect to the right of the lessor of the plaintiff at the time when that deed was made, does not prevent the rule of law from attaching. The estoppel applies to the defendant by reason of his priority with and under Jacob Fisher, not because of personal ill faith. Jacob Fisher's deed was indeed a color of title under which a possession by the defendant for a (188) sufficient length of time, would divest the title of the plaintiff's lessor. But until that title was divested it was sufficiently established against Jacob Fisher and those coming in afterwards under Jacob Fisher by showing the avowed cotenancy with him.
A brief notice will be all that is necessary of the other points in the case. The statements made in the bill in equity filed by Ross could only be material as evidence to show that Peter Fisher had not a good title at the date of his deed. But this would not effect the title of the plaintiff's lessor because the defendant was not at liberty to dispute that title. The construction which the judge placed on the proviso or memorandum attached to the agreement was the only one it could bear. As to the marshall's deed — and the sale by the sheriff under the judgment of Bird's heirs against Peter Fisher, which judgment had been bought by Ross — it is enough to say that these, as well as the bill in equity, all occurred previously to the execution of the judgment of 10 April, 1817, and all claims and contests under or by reason of them, were by that instrument concluded.
We are of opinion that the judgment ought to be affirmed.
PER CURIAM. Judgment affirmed.