Cohn v. Daley

174 U.S. 539, 19 S. Ct. 802, 43 L. Ed. 1077, 1899 U.S. LEXIS 1516
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedMay 15, 1899
Docket136
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 174 U.S. 539 (Cohn v. Daley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cohn v. Daley, 174 U.S. 539, 19 S. Ct. 802, 43 L. Ed. 1077, 1899 U.S. LEXIS 1516 (1899).

Opinion

Mr. Justice McKenna

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action to quiet title to certain mining claims in the Territory of Arizona.

*540 The appellant was plaintiff in the court below, and the appellee was one of the defendants impleaded with A. J. Mehan, Dewitt C. Turner and Bell H. Chandler.

Appellant claims to derive title from one A. J. Mehan under an execution sale upon a judgment obtained by him against Mehan in one of the justices’ courts of Cochise County, in said Territory, and a deed executed in pursuance of such proceedings and purchase.

The appellee denied the ownership of appellant, and asserted a superior right upon the following allegations: That on the 11th of April, 1890, and for more than five years before, she and one James Daley were husband and wife, and lived together as such. At the time of the marriage he owned no money nor property of any kind, but that she had three thousand dollars “in United States coin and currency;” and prior to the 11th of April, 1890, she and Daley used all of said money “ in prospecting for, locating and procuring, preserving and maintaining titles to mines and mining claims,” and owned the claims in controversy on the said 11th of April. During the coverture she was uneducated and utterly ignorant of the language, laws and customs of the United States and the Territory, and Daley was fairly well versed therein; and, • confiding and relying on “ the advice of her said husband,” advanced him her money “ to procure, preserve and maintain the title” to the mining claims, and he took advantage of her ignorance and the confidence reposed in him, “ and took and kept the title to all of said mining claims, and interests in mining claims in his own name,” without her knowledge or consent, and on the 11th -of April, 1890, he abandoned her, and has not since returned to or communicated-with her.

On the 2d of September, 1890, Daley conveyed the claims by deed duly acknowledged and recorded in the recorder’s office of Cochise County, of said Territory, to A. J. Mehan, who gave no value therefor, and who had 'full notice. and knowledge of all her equities.

The appellant, claims to own the claims by virtue of an attachment, judgment, execution sale thereunder, and -a con *541 stable’s deed in tbe case of Adolph Cohn v. A. J. Mehan. Cohn was plaintiff in the action and the purchaser at the sale, and at that time and long prior thereto had full notice and knowledge of her equities, and notice and knowledge that Mehan had given no value for his conveyance. On the 15th of September, 1890, Mehan conveyed an undivided half interest in the claims, by a deed duly acknowledged and recorded, to Dewitt C. Turner, and on the 22d of November, 1890, a like deed of one third interest to the defendant Bell H. Chandler, neither of whom gave value for his conveyance, and both of • whom had notice of her equities, and of Mehan’s knowledge thereof, and that Mehan had given no value for his conveyance. On the 8th day of January, 1891, the defendant Turner conveyed, an undivided one sixth to the defendant F. C. Fisher, who had knowledge of her equities,' and the notice and knowledge of the" prior parties. On the 15th of October, 1890, she commenced an action for divorce from said Daley, and on the 14th day of May, 1891, a decree was rendered therein in her favor dissolving the marriage and awarding her the mining claims in controversy, and permitting her to resume her maiden name of “Angela Dias.”

On the 18th of October, 1890, and before Cohn bought the claims, she commenced an action against Daley, Mehan and Turner to quiet the title to the claims, and caused to be filed in the recorder’s office of the county where the property was situated a notice of the pendency of the action, containing a statement of the nature of the action and of her ownership of and a description of the claims; and Adolph Cohn took title from Mehan after the filing and recording of such notice. '

She prayed to be decreed owner of the claims, and that defendants be adjudged to have no interest in them, and that their deeds be cancelled.

The other defendants made default, and the trial proceeded on the issues made between appellant and appellee, and judgment was rendered for her and duly entered. A motion for a new trial was made, but was overruled on the 26th day of November, 1892.

A bill of exceptions was submitted by the appellant on the *542 1st of December, 1892, and settled and allowed on the loth of said month by the judge who presided at the trial, after objections made by appellee were heard and considered.

The bill of exceptions recites “that on the 27th of May, 1892, the above cause came on regular for trial, and during the progress thereof the following proceedings were had, as more fully appears in the statement of facts filed herein expressly referred to, and the exceptions to rulings of court as therein shown are made a part of this,bill of exceptions.”

' Then follows an enumeration of the rulings and the motion for new trial and the ruling thereon.

A statement of facts or what is called such was submitted to the counsel of appellee on the 16th of December, 1892. It was entitled in the court and cause, and contained the following recital:

“Transcript of shorthand notes of testimony, etc., taken from the trial of the above-entitled causej at the court room of said court, in the city of Tombstone, on Friday, the twenty-seventh day of May, a.d. 1892, at 9.30 o’clock a.m., before the court (Hon. Richard E. Sloan, presiding) sitting without a jury, in the presence of W. C. Staehle, Esq., attorney for, and W. H. Barnes, Esq., of counsel with, plaintiff, and James Reilly, Esq., attorney for defendant Angela Dias de Daley; Allen R. English, Esq., for counsel.”

Following this recital is a verbatim transcript of the proceedings and of the evidence by question and answer, and of the rulings of the court. It concluded by the following recital:

“ The foregoing 102 pages and documents herein referred to and to be copied into the transcript of the clerk when directed is submitted to the opposite party, the defendant, by plaintiff as a full statement of facts in the trial of this cause, and is by ' the plaintiff agreed to as such.
“Dec. 16, 1892. W. H. Baines,
Atfy for Plaintiff.”

The record contains the following:

“We agree that the foregoing — pages of typewriting en *543 titled in the above cause contain a transcript of the reporter’s notes taken at the trial of said cause, which was filed therein .with the clerk of the court November 25, 1892, but said pages also contain matter not in such transcript when so filed,. to wit:

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Bluebook (online)
174 U.S. 539, 19 S. Ct. 802, 43 L. Ed. 1077, 1899 U.S. LEXIS 1516, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cohn-v-daley-scotus-1899.