Redmond v. Cass

80 N.E. 708, 226 Ill. 120
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 21, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 80 N.E. 708 (Redmond v. Cass) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Redmond v. Cass, 80 N.E. 708, 226 Ill. 120 (Ill. 1907).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Cartwright

delivered the opinion of the court:

Upon a bill filed by appellees alleging that they were the owners in fee simple of the west half of the north-west quarter of section 32, town 19, range 12, in Vermilion county, and asking to have the title quieted and clouds removed therefrom, the circuit court found that they were owners in fee simple of said lands and that the claims of the several defendants were clouds upon their title. A decree was entered quieting the title and enjoining the defendants from asserting any right, title, interest, equity, claim or estate in or to said lands. The appellants, John G. Redmond and Agnes M. Vandersteen, with others, were defendants, and they alone appealed from the decree.

Appellees and their grantor had been in the actual adverse possession of the premises more than twenty-five years ■ under conveyances purporting.to vest the title in them, and ■appellees claimed title by virtue of such■ conveyances and under the statutes of limitation of twenty years and seven years, respectively. The appellants by their answers denied that they claimed, or ever had claimed, any interest in the surface of the land, but Redmond claimed an undivided thirteen-fourteenths and Agnes M. Vandersteen claimed an undivided one-fourteenth of the coal and minerals underlying the land, under a deed from the widow and heirs of John Faulds, deceased, dated September 22, 1903, to Redmond, and a warranty deed from Thomas A. Taylor to John Faulds, dated October 3, 1867. They contended that the title to the coal and minerals was separated from the title to the surface by the deed of Taylor and that the two estates were never re-united, so that mere possession of the surface did not carry with it possession of the. coal and minerals.

Thomas A. Taylor was the owner of the entire estate in the land, including both the surface and the coal and minerals thereunder, and on October 3, 1867, he made two deeds to John Faulds of the coal and minerals under the lands,—one a quit-claim deed, recorded October 7, 1867, in book 9, at page-314, in the office of the recorder of Vermilion county, and the other a warranty deed. The deeds were acknowledged on the day of their date, and there is no evidence as to which one was made first. None of the witnesses could recollect that two deeds were made or that there was any reason for making two. In reciting a consideration the quit-claim deed omitted the word “dollars,” and the consideration was stated as follows: “For and in consideration of two thousand three hundred twenty in hand paid.” The warranty deed recited a consideration of “two thousand three hundred twenty ($2320) dollars in hand paid.” The quit-claim deed conveyed all the coal and minerals under the land belonging to the grantors in several sections, including section 32, and the warranty deed conveyed the coal and minerals under this and other tracts which were described therein. On August 20, 1868, John Faulds, the grantee in said deeds, and Annie Faulds, his wife, executed a trust deed to George L,. Paddock to secure the note of John Faulds for $7319. On October 18, 1869, Paddock executed a release of the trust deed, which was filed for record May 23, 1872. Shortly thereafter, on July 25, 1872, a bill was filed in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of Illinois by Joseph G. English, as assignee of Harvey Sandusky, a bankrupt, against John Faulds, Annie Faulds, Paddock, and others, to set aside the release and foreclose the trust deed. Paddock and John and Annie Faulds appeared and answered. On July 14, 1874, a decree was entered setting aside the release, foreclosing the trust deed and ordering the master in chancery to sell the premises without redemption unless the amount due on the note and trust deed should be paid within six months, and upon such sale being made, to execute a deed to the purchaser or purchasers. On September 26, 1874, a sale of the premises was made to Thomas A. Taylor, and two days afterward the master filed his report of said sale. On October 8, 1874, the master executed a deed in pursuance of the decree and sale. On January 14, 1877, the heirs of Thomas A. Taylor executed a deed to Cynthia F. Smith purporting to convey the land without any reservation. On February 26, 1896, Cynthia F. Smith and husband conveyed the premises to appellees. On July 15, 1901, the heirs of John Faulds, except the infant children of Annie Faulds, one of his daughters, executed a quit-claim deed of all their right, title and interest in the coal and minerals underlying any and all lands in Vermilion and Champaign counties to Redmond, and on March 9, 1905, Redmond conveyed an undivided one-fourteenth interest in said coal and minerals to Agnes M. Vandersteen. On April 10, 1905, the bill in this case was filed, by which the appellees sought, among other things, to have the deeds to the appellants set aside and declared clouds upon their title.

The claim of the appellants rests on these propositions: First, that' the quit-claim deed from Taylor to Faulds conveyed no title because no consideration was expressed therein; second, that the trust deed from Faulds to-Paddock did not convey any greater interest in the coal and minerals than the interest-conveyed by said quit-claim deed; third, that the decree entered on the foreclosure of the trust deed ordered a sale only of the title conveyed by said quit-claim deed, which was no title; fourth, that the deed of the master to Taylor did not convey any greater interest than that conveyed by the quit-claim deed; fifth, that the deed of the master was void, for the reason that his report of sale was never approved by the court; sixth, that the title to the coal and minerals having been severed from the surface by the warranty deed of Taylor to Faulds, and having never been re-united with the title to the surface, the possession by appellees of the surface was not a possession of the coal and minerals, and therefore no title was acquired under any statute of limitations; seventh, that the warranty deed from Taylor to Faulds, executed on the same day- as the quit-claim deed, did convey title, and that appellants are the owners of that title by a connected chain through the deed from the heirs of Faulds to Redmond and the deed from Redmond to Agnes M. Vandersteen.

There is no equity whatever in any claim of the appellants. Neither they nor Faulds nor his heirs were ever in possession of the lands or the coal or minerals. Nothing was ever done on the land, in the way of mining coal or prospecting for it, with the design of taking coal or minerals from it, and although the deed to Faulds was made nearly thirty-seven years before the bill in this case was filed, the coal and minerals were never severed from the surface for the purpose of taxation, and neither appellants nor Faulds nor his heirs ever paid any taxes on the same. The whole claim of' appellants rests on the accidental omission of the word “dollars” from one of the deeds. We never heard of a claimant who succeeded in a court of equity on such a claim, and probably there never will be one.

There is not only a want of equity in the claim of appellants, but we are also of the opinion that it has no legal foundation. In the trust deed of Faulds, the bill to foreclose, the subsequent decree, the sale and the master’s deed the property was described as the right, interest, estate and property of John Faulds and Annie Faulds 'derived under and by virtue of the deed from Thomas A.

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Bluebook (online)
80 N.E. 708, 226 Ill. 120, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/redmond-v-cass-ill-1907.