Powers v. Carter Coal & Iron Co.

41 S.E. 867, 100 Va. 450, 1902 Va. LEXIS 44
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedJune 19, 1902
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 41 S.E. 867 (Powers v. Carter Coal & Iron Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Powers v. Carter Coal & Iron Co., 41 S.E. 867, 100 Va. 450, 1902 Va. LEXIS 44 (Va. 1902).

Opinion

Cardwell, J.,

delivered the opinion of the conrt.

J. A. Miller, sheriff of Dickenson county, for the benefit and at the cost of W. 8. Powers and W. A. Powers (sometimes called W. A. Powers, Jr.), trading under the firm name and style of Powers Bros., issued a notice to Jane Damron, principal, and Cummins Kiser and J. A. Hughes, her sureties, that he would move the County Court of Dickenson county on the 12th day of April, 1898, being the first day of the April term of the said court, for a judgment on a suspending bond in the penalty of $60, executed by Jane Damron, and her said sureties, to the said Miller, S. W. O., for, etc., and forfeited. This notice was served only upon Kiser and Hughes, and there was no order made by the clerk of the County Court of Dickenson county at the April term, 1898, docketing and continuing the motion, but on the 10th day of May, during the succeeding term of Dickenson County Court, judgment was entered in favor of Powers Bros, against Kiser and Hughes for the penalty of the suspending bond, to-wit, $60 and costs, which judgment was docketed in the clerk’s office of Dickenson County Court, and an abstract thereof was, on the 23d day of June, 1898, docketed in the clerk’s office of Wise County Court. On the 11th day of August, 1898, Powers Bros, instituted a chancery suit in the Circuit Court of Wise county against Jane Damron, Cummins Kiser, and J. A. Hughes to subject to the payment of the aforesaid judgment a tract of land belonging to Kiser, situated in Wise county, and, at the same time caused to be recorded in the County Court clerk’s office a lis pendens setting forth the object of this chancery suit, a description of the land sought to be subjected to the satisfaction of the judgment asserted therein, etc. This bill was taken for confessed, and a decree made thereon at the September term of the court following, directing a sale of the land described in the bill, and that sale was made on the 7th of December, 1898, by the commissioner of the court [452]*452appointed for the purpose, and W. A. Powers, Jr., became the purchaser of the land at the price of $200. The sale was reported to the court and confirmed, and subsequently the purchaser paid the whole of the purchase money in cash, and a deed for the land was made to him by the commissioner of the court, pursuant to a decree entered on the 12th of April, 1899, which deed W. A. Powers had recorded in the clerk’s office of Wise County Court.

On the 1st day of August, 1899, Cummins Kiser and J. A. Hughes moved the Judge of Dickenson County Court, in vacation, under section 3451 of the Code, to annul, vacate and set aside the order of May 10, 1898, rendering the judgment against them before mentioned, setting forth, among other things, as the grounds for the motion, that there was no order docketing and continuing the motion for the judgment at the April term of the County Court of Dickenson, to which the notice of the motion for the judgment was made returnable, and this motion t'o vacate the judgment was continued until August 15, 1899, when it was met by a counter-motion on the part of Powers Bros, that the judge of the County Court enter an order nunc pro tunc correcting the former order complained of, that, is, to enter an order nunc pro tunc docketing the motion for judgment on the suspending bond as of April 12, 1898, and continuing the motion to the May term following; but the judge of the County Court overruled the motion of Powers Bros, and entered an order vacating the judgment. Prom this order Powers Bros, obtained a writ of error and supersedeas from the Circuit Court of Dickenson county, which, upon a hearing, resulted in a reversal of the jridgment of the County Court, but upon the condition that the nunc pro tunc order provide that the judgment of May 10, 1898, should have no other effect than a personal judgment as of May 10, 1898, against Cummins Baser and J. A. Hughes, and be a lien only upon such real estate as they or either of them owned at the date of the order, and [453]*453should not be a lien upon the real estate sold and conveyed by Cummins Kiser to Carter Coal & Iron Company, or in any way affect that land (which is the land in controversy here), and the order of the Circuit Court, which in its opinion the County Court should have entered, contains the provisions stated. To this judgment of the Circuit Court there was and qould have been no writ of error, the amount involved being less than $500.

The surface of the land referred to in the order of the Circuit Court of Wise county was purchased by the predecessors in title of the Carter Coal & Iron Company from Cummins Kiser in September, 1891, under an executory contract, evidencing the sale, which was never recorded—the mineral rights in the land having been theretofore acquired—and it was not until January, 1899, that Kiser conveyed the surface of the land to the Carter Coal & Iron Company, when the purchase price therefor, $2,933.92, was fully paid, and the deed of conveyance recorded, but the possession of the land in the Carter Coal & Iron Company and its predecessors in title, prior to the deed from the commissioner of the Circuit Court of Wise county conveying the land to W. A. Powers, Jr., was actual, open, and notorious.

To the first August rules, 1899, the Carter Coal & Iron Company instituted a suit in chancery in the Circuit Court of Wise county against W. A. Powers, Jr., and others, the object of which was to annul and set aside the deed from the commissioner of the Circuit Court of Wise county to W. A. Powers, Jr., .as being a cloud upon the Carter Coal & Iron Company’s title to the land in question; the bill in that case setting out that the judgment upon which the proceedings were had which resulted in the deed to W. A. Powers, Jr., was a nullity, and the reasons therefor.

On the 4th of September, 1899, Cummins Kiser and J. A. Hughes filed a bill of review in the original chancery cause of Powers Bros, against Cummins Kiser et als. in the Circuit Court of Wise county, asking that the whole proceedings in that cause [454]*454be.reviewed, reversed, and set aside, for reasons fully set forth in the bill, among which, and the only one that we need here consider, was ^hat the judgment upon which all the proceedings were had in that suit, and which led up to the deed to W. A. Powers, Jr., for the land in question, had been set aside and annulled by the County Court of Dickenson county on the 15th day of August, 1899, as hereinbefore stated. Subsequently, the bill of review, was amended, setting forth the order of" the Circuit Court of Dickenson county of October 10, 1899, upon the writ of error and supersedeas to the judgment of the County Court to which we have above referred; and, this cause coming-on to be heard December 7, 1900, upon the bill of review as amended, and the exhibits therewith, on the demurrer and answer of W. S. and W. A. Powers, on the joinder in the demurrer and the general replication to the answer, the court granted the prayer of the bill of review, annulling all the decrees in the cause prior to September 4, 1899, and dismissing the original bill at the costs of Powers Bros. Prom this decree no appeal is taken.

On the same day, to-wit, the 7th day of December, 1900, the cause of Carter Coal & Iron Co. v. Powers Bros. et als., came on to be heard on the original and amended bill of the complainant, the 'answer thereto of W. A.

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Bluebook (online)
41 S.E. 867, 100 Va. 450, 1902 Va. LEXIS 44, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/powers-v-carter-coal-iron-co-va-1902.