McGehee v. Jones

10 Ga. 127
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedJuly 15, 1851
DocketNo. 17
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 10 Ga. 127 (McGehee v. Jones) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McGehee v. Jones, 10 Ga. 127 (Ga. 1851).

Opinion

By the Court.

Nisbet, J.

delivering the opinion.

Perhaps it would be justifiable to consider this demurrer only in its application to the bill, as amended. But I consider the questions in the order in which they are made in the record, and were presented in the argument.

[1.] The first point made is, that the bill, before it was amended, does not make a case authorizing relief. The case is this: The testator of the plaintiff in error, J. Lamar, sold to the defendant in error, W. E. Jones, a number of lots of land. Notes were given for the purchase money, amounting to some $15,000, payable by instalments, and a bond for titles, conditioned to make good and warrantee titles when the purchase money was paid, was executed by Lamar to Jones. Jones paid the two first instalments. Suit was brought, by Lamar’s executors, on the note for the last instalment, and they obtained judgment for $6,800, a large part of which Jones avers that he has paid. He alleges that, on the 9th March, 1850, he tendered to Abner McGehee, one of the executors of Lamar, the full amount of the balance of the judgment, and demanded titles from him, which he neglected and refused to makethat he (Jones) is still ready and willing to pay the balance, when the executors will make good and warrantee titles to him, and shall produce the [132]*132grants and such a complete chain of titles as the Court shall consider sufficientthat McGehee’s attorneys have ordered the Sheriff to press the execution for the balance of the judgment, and collect the one half due thereon, which the Sheriff is about to do. These are the facts alleged in the bill; and upon this case the complainant prays an injunction against the judgment, and for general relief. If there was equity in this bill in other respects, it could not stand against the demurrer, because of the want of certainty in the averments relative to the tender. They are too vague. The general statement, that a tender was made, is not enough. It is as defective, as a general averment of fraud. That a tender was made, is a conclusion of the pleader, simply. Pie must state the facts which constitute a legal tender. The same precision, I know, is not required in Equity pleadings that is exacted at Law; yet, in the language of Lord Thurlow, there must be something substantial. The facts must be so stated as to be issuable. Defendant must be notified of the facts out of which the plaintiff’s equity springs, and which he is to controvert. The rule at Law is, that a defendant, pleading a tender, must show an actual production of the money, and offer to pay it, or that the production of it was dispensed with by his adversary. 10 East, 101. 4 Esp. N. P. C. 68. 1 Bingham’s N. C. 253. 6 Wend. 22. 3 Stark. Ev. 1559. 2. Wils. 74. Wheat. Selw. 153. Substantially, a party in Equity, claiming relief on the ground of atender, must so plead. It is not enough at Law, to plead that the party is still ready and willing to pay; he must state that he was always ready to pay, in addition to that. And if the declaration and plea show that the defendant was not always ready and willing to pay, the plea will be bad. 1 Saund. 33, n. 2. 8 East, 168, ’9. 10 East, 168. The averments are fatally defective in this, that they state a conditional tender. The offer to pay must be unconditional. 8 Greenl. 107. Ib. 119.

This bill shows that the complainant’s offer to pay, was coupled with a demand for titles; he does not even aver that the defendants below refused to accept. JSTon constat, but that they were eager to accept the money offered. The averment is, that they refused and neglected to make titles. Complainant proceeds [133]*133to say, that he is still willing and ready to pay, when the executors shall make good and warrantee Miles, &c. &c. So the allegations show a conditional tender, which, in fact, affirmatively exhibit a case without equity.

[2.] If, however, these allegations were sufficient, the bill would not then make a case for Equity jurisdiction. The defendant in error, relying on his original bill, must be turned over to his action at Law on the bond.

The bill does not show that Jones went into possession of these lands; but that fact is inferable from his complying, to so large an extent, with the contract, in paying the greater part of the purchase money. Not much reliance, however, is placed upon this inference. To place himself out of the operation of the rule which I am about to state, I conclude that the complainant in Equity must show, by his bill, that he is out of possession. Coming into Equity for relief, the complainant must make a .case within the rule of Law, which authorizes the relief. If out of possession, I may concede, for the sake of the argument, that he is entitled to relief, but not otherwise. Not averring that fact, the conclusion of Lhw is, that he is in possession, under the contract .of purchase set forth. The rule, then, is this, to-wit: a purchaser of land, who is in possession, cannot have relief in Equity) against his contract to pay, on the mere ground of a defect of title, without a previous eviction. When he goes in under a deed, with covenants of warranty, and apprehends a failure of title, and wishes relief before eviction, he must resort to his covenants; and if under a bond for titles, he must resort to his bond. A Court of Equity is not the appropriate tribunal to try titles to land. It may, perhaps, try title to land when it comes up incidentally; but not when the case depends upon a simple legal title, and is brought up directly. The power is to be exercised only in difficult and complicated cases, affording peculiar grounds for equitable interference. 1 Mad. Ch. 135. 6 Brown P. C. 575. 2 Johns. Ch. R. 524.

This bill does not even charge, that there are outstanding titles to the land, much less does it set them forth. The wide inference is; because the plaintiff in error has neglected and re[134]*134fused to make good and warrantee titles; therefore, there is a title outstanding, which must needs defeat the complainant’s title. If, in any case before eviction, Equity could interfere, it certainly could not upon so meagre a case as this bill makes. But it will not, in any such case. “ It would lead (says Ch. Kent) to the greatest inconvenience, and perhaps abuse, if a purchaser in the actual enjoyment of land, and when no third person asserts, or takes any measures to assert a hostile claim, can be permitted, on suggestion of defect or failure of title, and on the principle of quia timet, to stop the payment of the purchase money, and of all proceedings at law to recover it.” The learned Chancellor suggests, that an outstanding incumbrance, admitted by the party, or shown by the record, might, perhaps, form an exception in case of covenants against incumbrances. But he does not decide that it would be an exception. If such a case be an exception, this is not the case, and cannot fall within it. Here the party does not admit, and the record does not show, an outstanding incumbrance; nor is there any covenants against incumbrances. If fraud were charged in the sale, that would be an exception. Here fraud is not charged. There are cases where Equity will relieve, upon other grounds, to which I will advert when I come to consider the demurrer to the amended bill.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Allen
536 F. Supp. 222 (M.D. Georgia, 1982)
Holcomb v. Garcia
143 S.E.2d 184 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1965)
Chambless v. Cain
135 S.E.2d 463 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1964)
Burnam v. Wilkerson
124 S.E.2d 389 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1962)
Battles v. Anchor Rome Mills Inc.
55 S.E.2d 156 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1949)
Heath v. Miller
54 S.E.2d 432 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1949)
Jolly v. Jones
40 S.E.2d 558 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1946)
McKown v. Heery
38 S.E.2d 425 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1946)
Crowell v. Brim
12 S.E.2d 585 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1940)
Campbell v. Gormley
192 S.E. 430 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1937)
Nance v. Daniel
189 S.E. 21 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1936)
L. Realty Co. v. City of St. Paul
237 N.W. 192 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1931)
Brittain Bros. v. Davis
144 S.E. 904 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1928)
Bank of Bullochville v. Riehle
137 S.E. 642 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1927)
Cobbs Land Co. v. Colonial Hill Co.
121 S.E. 395 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1924)
Henderson v. Fields
85 S.E. 741 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1915)
McCarty v. Piedmont Mutual Ins.
62 S.E. 1 (Supreme Court of South Carolina, 1908)
Baxter & Co. v. Camp
54 S.E. 1036 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1906)
Dunn v. Mills
79 P. 146 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1905)
Morgan v. Baxter & Co.
38 S.E. 411 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1901)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
10 Ga. 127, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcgehee-v-jones-ga-1851.