Panton v. Manley

4 Ill. App. 210, 1879 Ill. App. LEXIS 168
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJuly 16, 1879
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 4 Ill. App. 210 (Panton v. Manley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Panton v. Manley, 4 Ill. App. 210, 1879 Ill. App. LEXIS 168 (Ill. Ct. App. 1879).

Opinion

Lacey, J.

On the 24th day of January, A. D. 1873, the appellant, while his wife Jane Ann Pan ton was insane, and in the insane asylum at Elgin, executed his mortgage, conveying the premises, house and several lots, situated in Clintonville,. in Kane county, described in the bill to Joseph P. Corran, the father of the appellee, Manley, to secure $2,000, the wife of appellant not joining in the mortgage.

At the time this mortgage was executed/and some time before the wife of appellant was insane, the premises in question had been, and were, occupied-as a homestead by appellant and his wife, when his wife was not in the asylum, and by complainant all the time his wife was in the insane asylum.

Afterwards, this mortgage was assigned by Corran to his daughter, Cornelia J. Manley. Afterwards, the debt not being paid, appellee, Manley being about to advertise and sell the premises under the mortgage, entered into an agreement with appellant and Y. W. Panton, who occupied the premises with his father and his own family, his father residing with him, and keeping his furniture there, to the effect that the appellant should execute to appellee, Manley, a deed waiving the right of homestead, and should deliver up possession of the house and lots to appellee, Manley, in which case the appellee, Manley, was then to cancel the mortgage and deliver to appellant the notes. Y.. W. Panton was to attorn to appellee, Manley, and take a written lease from her.

On the 20th day of April, A. D. 1876, the husband of appellee, Manley, and appellant met at the office of Wing, an attorney at law, for the purpose of having the deed executed, the mortgage and notes delivered to appellant, and the possession of the premises delivered to appellee, Manley, by appellant and Y. W. Panton.

The deed was executed and delivered by appellant, waiving the homestead in the body thereof, but not in the acknowledgment, nor was it signed by the wife of appellant, who was still in the insane asylum.

Appellant also assigned his insurance policy on the house to appellee, Manley. Then under the promise that Y. W. Panton execute the lease, and appellant himself would deliver up possession and attorn to appellee; appellee, by her agent, delivered the notes and mortgage to appellant. Appellee’s husband then went to see Y. W. Pan ton, who was not present, to get him to sign the lease, but when he saw him, Y. W. Panton refused to sign the lease, or give possession of the land, and claimed the right to hold it for his mother, she having a homestead right therein.

On the 29th April, 1876, appellee, O. J. Manley, commenced a suit of forcible detainer before a justice, against Y. W. Pan-ton, to obtain possession of the premises. ■

The justice gave judgment for the possession of the premises. Upon appeal to the Circuit Court, by Y. W. Panton, on March 8, 1877, the appeal was dismissed for want of prosecution.

On the 9th of same month, motion to reinstate' the cause was overruled, and upon appeal to Supreme Court, the decision of the court below was affirmed.

The appellee, Cornelia J. Manley, being about to obtain possession of the premises by a writ against Y. W. Panton, appellant, on the 24th day of April, A. D. 1879, filed his bill in the Circuit Court of Kane county, against appellee, Manley, and Y. W. Pan ton, claiming his right of homestead, and asking it to be assigned to him, and that the rent payable from Y. W. Panton to appellee, by virtue of the appeal bond in the detainer case, be ascertained on a basis of $1,000, and paid to him.

Upon answer and affidavits filed, the court below dismissed the bill and rendered decree for damages on the injunction bond.

From that decree the appellant appeals to this court and assigns for error, among other matters, that the court' below erred in dismissing the bill and rendering the decree.

It is claimed by appellee, Manley, that equity has no jurisdiction in the case ; that, as Y. W. Panton was the tenant of appellant, there was privity of possession and that both parties claimed under the same source.

The principle laid down in the case of Goodnough v. Sheppard, 28 Ill. 81, in which it was held that equity would restrain one man from obtaining- possession of land by means of process growing out of litigation to which the possessor of the land was not a party, it is insisted does not apply. We think the principle announced in that case is applicable in this. In this case Y. W. Panton held under the complainant, the com - plainant not under him. A landlord cannot be said to hold under his tenant.

In this case Y. W. Panton, who was a defendant in the detainer suit, through neglect, did not prosecute his appeal, and did not in the Circuit Court set up and insist on his right to hold the homestead as tenant of the homesteader.

In an action of ejectment a judgment against the tenant, of which the landlord had no notice, no more bound the landlord than would a judgment in any other legal proceeding to which he was no party. Lowe v. Emerson, 48 Ill. 160; Oetgen v. Ross, 47 Ill. 142.

Appellant was neither party nor privy to the action of detainer and has a right to maintain this action.

It is claimed, first, that the conveyance by appellant to appellee, Manley, of 20th April, 1876, under the circumstances was operative to convey appellant’s estate of homestead, and secondly, that if the title was not conveyed at that time, including the homestead, that appellant afterwards abandoned the house and lots as a homestead in pursuance of the deed and that the appellee thereby became the owner of the premises in fee discharged of the appellant’s right of homestead.

The statute in force at the time of this conveyance—statute 1874, page 497, Sec. 4—provides that “Bo release, waiver or conveyance of the estate (homestead) so exempted, shall be valid, unless the same is in writing, subscribed by said householder and his dr her wife or husband, if he or she has one, and acknowledged in the same manner as conveyances of real estate are required to be acknowledged, or possession is abandoned or given pursuant to the conveyance,” etc.

By the Conveyance Act, it is required that there shall be contained in the body of the deed a clause waiving the right of homestead, and that a similar clause shall be contained in the acknowledgment of both husband and wife—Statute 1874, Secs. 11 and 27—and no release of the husband shall bind the wife unless she join in such release or waiver. Neither in the mortgage given Corran, nor the deed, did the wife join.

By the construction given to these enactments by the Supreme Court, in the case of Richards v. Greene, 73 Ill. 54, the husband could not release his own right of homestead unless his wife join in the deed in the manner required by the statute.

Hence, neither the deed nor mortgage could convey the appellant’s right of homestead. In the case of the deed there was no clause in the acknowledgment of appellant waiving his right of homestead. But was the estate of homestead of appellant, at the time he executed the deed, released or waived by his abandoning or giving possession pursuant to the deed of his homestead.

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

Related

Lazenby v. Lazenby
157 So. 670 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1934)
Singleton v. National Land Co.
183 Iowa 1108 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1918)
Alton Mercantile Co. v. Spindel
1914 OK 209 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1914)
Columbian Building & Loan Ass'n v. Leeds
128 Ill. App. 195 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1906)
Withers v. Love
83 P. 204 (Supreme Court of Kansas, 1905)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
4 Ill. App. 210, 1879 Ill. App. LEXIS 168, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/panton-v-manley-illappct-1879.