Brown v. Solary

37 Fla. 102
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJanuary 15, 1896
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 37 Fla. 102 (Brown v. Solary) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. Solary, 37 Fla. 102 (Fla. 1896).

Opinion

Mabry, C. J.:

The grounds of the demurrer that were sustained involved only formal defects that were supplied at the hearing of the demurrer. The alleged defect as to the prima facie sufficiency of the tax deed extended only ■to the absence of a seal on the copy filed with the bill, and this was simply a clerical oversight in the clerk in •not affixing the seal to the copy. The other grounds of the demurrer were considered and expressly overruled, with leave to demurrants to answer or plead to the bill. The amendment of the-mere formal defects having been made on the hearing of the demurrer,' the objection to the bill on their account was then removed, and defendants are entitled to have the adverse ruling of the court on the other grounds reviewed without demurring again after the amendment was made. The first and second grounds overruled question the right of complainants to any relief in equity on the allegations of their bill. In connection with these two-grounds we consider the seventh, that the bill does not sufficiently allege possession of the land on the part of complainants.

The case made for complainants, briefly stated, is that they were seized in fee of the land in question; that one Tompkins acquired a pretended tax deed to it, and, claiming thereunder, conveyed by quit claim deed an undivided half interest to one McMurtry; that Tompkins and McMurtry conveyed that portion of the [109]*109land west and northwest of the Silver Springs, Ocala & Gulf Railroad to defendants James EL Smith, Norman R. Smith and J. P. Pulcifer, and that portion east of said railroad to defendant C. M. Brown; that the tax deed to Tompkins was void on account of certain specified defects in the tax sale proceedings; and that defendants Brown, Agnew, Gillen, Baldwin, the-Marion Phosphate Company, and the Silver Springs, Ocala & Gulf Railroad Company, confederating to injure and defraud complainants,, had unlawfully, severally and jointly, entered upon the land under color of said pretended tax deed, and other pretended claims, unknown to complainants, and had been and were mining the land for'phosphate, and had taken and were taking phosphate from the soil, of great value, the exact value complainants were unable to learn without an accounting. It was also stated that phosphates were taken in great quantities, and the land was valuable chiefly on account of the phosphate, and that defendants had committed and were committing great and irreparable injury to the land, thereby destroying its value; the tresspasses and injuries being not only irreparable, but had been and were continuous. The special relief asked is an injunction against the mining of the land and trespasses thereon, that complainants’ rights in the land be established by decree of the court, that the tax deed be set aside and declared void and that an account be taken of the phosphate dug and removed from the land, and also of the damage done to the land.

If the basis for a resort to equity rested solely upon the ground of removing the tax deed as a cloud on1 complainants’ title, the possession alleged would probably not be sufficient. The allegation is that com[110]*110plainants were seized in fee, without any allegation that the land was wild and unoccupied. Sloan vs. Sloan, 25 Fla. 53, 5 South. 603; Haworth vs. Norris, 28 Fla. 763, 10 South. Rep. 18; Patton vs. Crumpler, 29 Fla. 573, 11 South. Rep. 225; Graham vs. Florida Land & Mortgage Co., 33 Fla. 356, 14 South. Rep. 796. Other equities than the removal of the tax deed as a cloud upon title are claimed in support of the bill. It asks for an injunction against mining phosphate in the soil of the land alleged to be valuable chiefly on account of the phosphate therein, and for an account of the phosphate already mined. A demand is also made for an account of the damages to the land by reason of the alleged trespass thereon. The basis for equitable interference in the removal of clouds from title is that a deed or other instrument, apparently valid, but void in fact, may be vexatiously or injuriously used against the rightful owner, after the evidence to invalidate it has been lost, and the owner, being in possession, can not immediately protect his right by any legal proceeding. In such case a court of equity will afford relief, and direct the deed or instrument to be delivered up and cancelled. The court grants relief in cases of trespass where the threatened injury can not be adequately compensated in damages, or where, under the circumstances of the case, the injured party has no adequate remedy at law. The foundation for the jurisdiction of equity to enjoin a trespass is, as stated in the recent case of Wiggins & Johnson vs. Williams, 36 Fla. 637, 18 South. Rep.-, the probability of irreparable injury, the -inadequacy of pecuniary compensation, the destruction of the estate in the character in which it was enjoyed, or the prevention of a multiplicity of suits. In order to successfully invoke [111]*111the aid of a court of equity in such a case, two conditions must concur: First, the complainant’s title must be admitted or legally established; and, second, the trespass must be of such a nature as to cause irreparable injury. Carney vs. Hadley, 32 Fla. 344, 14 South. Rep. 4. The alleged injury to the realty in the case before us results from the mining and taking of phosphate from the soil itself, and we entertain no doubt that such an act is so destructive of the estate as to give the court jurisdiction to enjoin it. The old rule limiting the relief in equity to waste was departed from in cases of mining in Flamang’s Case, where a wrong-doer was working minerals in complainant’s land, and it was regarded as destructive of the estate itself. This case is cited in Mitchell vs. Dors, 6 Vesey Jr. 147; Hanson vs. Gardiner, 7 Vesey Jr. 305; Thomas vs. Oakley, 18 Vesey Jr. 184. In Mitchell vs. Dors, an injunction was granted where defendant begun to take coal in his own soil, and worked into the land of complainant, and in Thomas vs. Oakley, an injunction and account were applied against a trespasser by exceeding a limited right to enter and take stone from a quarry, on the ground that it was a destruction of thé inheritance. In 2 Beach on Injunctions, sec. 1155, it is stated that “the digging and removing of ore from a mine without permission of the owner is a trespass which will be readily enjoined, because it reaches to the very substance and value of the estate, and goes to the destruction of it as a mine.” The questions of title and possession enter into the consideration in cases of trespass, as well as when an instrument is sought to be removed as a cloud upon title. The rule formerly in use in England was not to enjoin a defendant in the use and enjoyment of land when the title was in dis[112]*112pute, but to leave the party to his remedy at law. The Lord Chancellor stated in. Pillsworth vs. Hopton, 6 Vesey Jr. 51, he remembered being told from the bench early in life that “if the plaintiff filed a bill for an account and an injunction to restrain waste, stating that the defendant claimed by title adverse to his, he stated himself out of court as to the injunction.” This remark does not correctly state the rule now in force, as it is plain that in cases of serious and irreparable injury going to the destruction of the substance of the estate, the court has for a long time granted injunctions, and in some cases when the title was in litigation, to preserve the property from destruction pending legal proceedings. West vs. Walker, 3 N. J. Eq. 279, note A; Duvall vs. Waters, 1 Bland Chy. 569, S. C. 18 Am. Dec. 350; Erhardt vs.

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Bluebook (online)
37 Fla. 102, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-solary-fla-1896.