Remilliard v. Authier

105 N.W. 626, 20 S.D. 290, 1905 S.D. LEXIS 148
CourtSouth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 29, 1905
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 105 N.W. 626 (Remilliard v. Authier) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering South Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Remilliard v. Authier, 105 N.W. 626, 20 S.D. 290, 1905 S.D. LEXIS 148 (S.D. 1905).

Opinion

CORSON, P. J.

This was an action to quiet title to a one-fifth interest in a quarter section of land situated in Union county. The case was tried to the court without a jury, and, findings and judgment being in favor of the defendant, the plaintiff has appealed.

The plaintiff seeks a reversal upon two grounds: (i) That the court erred in admitting in evidence the record of a certain deed purporting to be executed by the father and mother of the appellant to Peter Remilliard, on the ground that the deed purporting to con-ve}' the homestead, and that the notary’s certificate of acknowledgment of the mother was insufficient to entitle the deed to record, and hence the record of said deed was inadmissible as evidence; (2) that the court’s conclusion that the judgment in the prior case was a bar to the present action was erroneous. The complaint of the plaintiff is in the usual form. The défendant in his answer denies the title of the plaintiff to the property, and as a third defense pleads a former adjudication of the circuit court of Union county as a bar to the action. Several other defenses are pleaded [292]*292by the defendant, but in the view we take of the case it will only be necessary to consider and discuss the third defense above referred to. The court practically found all of the issues raised by the pleadings in favor of the defendant, and its findings upon the third defense above referred to is as follows: “That on April 18, 1892, the plaintiff herein commenced an action in this court against the defendant herein and against Julia Chaussee and Ezilda Remilliard as defendants to set aside and to have adjudged as void and of no effect the deed made and executed by the said Ezilda Remilliard to this defendant on November 18, 1891, and recorded in Book 15 of Deeds, on page 441, referred to in finding No. 17, and claimed in-said action that plaintiff was the owner of and entitled to the possession of the premises in the first finding herein described, and alleging that the defendant in this action had no estate, right, or interest in or to said land. That in said action the plaintiff filed notice of lis pendens, and that thereafter the defendant herein and the said Ezilda Remilliard appeared in said action and answered, denying that plaintiff had any right, title, or interest in or to said land or any portion thereof, and alleging that this defendant by virtue of the conveyances hereinbefore referred to from Ezilda Re-milliard to George Authier was the owner of said premises, and praying that defendant’s title thereto be declared good and valid. That thereafter said cause was tried, and on the xoth of August, 1892, a decree was made and entered by the court adjudging that Ezilda Remilliard on November 18, 1891, at the time of her conveyance to the defendant, was the owner in fee of said premises and that this defendant was the owner in fee of said premises and was entitled to the possession thereof, and plaintiff’s action was thereby dismissed. (20) That said judgment was duly entered, and has never been appealed from, reversed, modified, or set aside.”

It will be noticed that the court finds that the plaintiff in said action, who is also the plaintiff in this action, claimed therein that he was the owner of and entitled to the possession of the premises-described in this action, and alleged that the defendant in this action had no estate, right, title, or interest in or to said land, and that the defendant herein and the said Ezilda Remilliard appeared in said action and answered, denying that plaintiff had any right, title, [293]*293or interest in or to said land or any portion thereof, and alleging that the defendant by virtue of the conveyance herein from Ezilda Re-milliard to him was the owner of the said premises and praying defendant’s title thereto be adjudged valid, and that a decree was thereafter entered b)»- the court adjudging that the defendant was the owner in fee of the said premises and that the defendant was entitled to the possession thereof, and that plaintiff’s action be dismissed, and that said judgment of dismissal was duly entered, and has never been appealed from, modified, reversed, or set aside. It will thus be seen, that the title of plaintiff to the premises was adjudged invalid and his action dismissed, and that the defendant was adjudged the owner in- fee of the said premises and was entitled to the possession thereof. The plaintiff in the present action now •claims title to one-fifth of the same property as heir at law of his father and mother, both of whom died prior to 1891, and does not now claim any title to the said property acquired subsequently to the commencement of the action in'which the former judgment was rendered. We are of the opinion, therefore, that the plaintiff is •estopped by the judgment in the former action from claiming any interest in the land in this action as heir at law of his father or mother. His right as such heir at law was fully adjudicated in the former action, for the reason that a party seeking to recover the .possession of real estate or quieting his title thereto, where his title is in issue in an action, is required to present to the court in such action all claims that he may have to the property from any source, if he have such title at the time of the commencement of the action, and all such claims presented by him or which might have been presented and adjudicated in that action are barred by the judgment entered therein.

Mr. Freeman, in his work on Judgments (section 302), says: “Whenever, in an action for possession of realty, the question of title is put in issue by the pleadings, the judgment prima facie constitutes an estoppel to the assertion of any title which exists in the losing party at the time of the former suit.” Mr. Black, in his work on Judgments (section 655), says: In other states the adoption of a code of practice has abolished all forms of action, and the modern innominate action for the recovery of realt)- resembles the old suit [294]*294in ejectment only in respect to its object. The action being brought by and against the real claimants, and all other fictions being abolished, it correlates in all respects with the purely personal actions, and, as a necessary consequence, the judgment has the character of finality. It follows that in all these states the judgment is conclusive of the points and questions actually litigated and determined— that is, the titles put in issue and tried, and the right of possession— and will bar any subsequent action betweén the same parties or their privies for the same land. The decisions show that this is now the the settled rule in the states of Vermont, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, California,. Oregon and Nevada, and probably in some others not here enumerated. The modern rule is therefore corerctly stated in the following language by the Supreme Court of Illinois: ‘A judgment at law, whether in an ejectment suit or in some other form of action,, is conclusive on the parties upon all questions, titles, and rights involved in the litigation and passed upon by the court, which the-court had power and jurisdiction to hear and determine, and nothing-more; and, whenever the same questions or the same rights or titles are again drawn in issue, whether in a court of equity or court of law, between the same parties or their privies, the previous adjudication must be regarded as conclusive upon them, and they will not be permitted to open up the controversy again! ” Hawley v. Simons, 102 Ill. 115.

This question was very fully considered by the Supreme Court of Nevada in Sherman v. Dille}', 3 Nev.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
105 N.W. 626, 20 S.D. 290, 1905 S.D. LEXIS 148, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/remilliard-v-authier-sd-1905.