Ruckelschaus v. Oehme

48 N.J. Eq. 436
CourtNew Jersey Court of Chancery
DecidedMay 15, 1891
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 48 N.J. Eq. 436 (Ruckelschaus v. Oehme) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Court of Chancery primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ruckelschaus v. Oehme, 48 N.J. Eq. 436 (N.J. Ct. App. 1891).

Opinion

Pitney, V. C.

The object of this bill is to restrain the entry of judgment upon a verdict in an action for mesne profits following a judgment in ejectment.

The ground of relief is that the conduct of the defendant’s intestate, who was plaintiff in ejectment, had been such as to render it inequitable that she should recover and collect from complainant a certain portion of the verdict, and as to the balance complainant offers to pay and has paid it to the defendant without prejudice.

On presenting the bill with affidavits annexed an order to show ■cause with interim restraint was made, and on its return a demurrer to the bill was interposed, and the order to show cause and the demurrer were heard together.

[438]*438The case made, or intended to be made, by the bill and affidavits is as follows:

Prior to January 5th, 1879, one McCulloch was tenant by the curtesy of a certain store-house in Newark. The issue of his deceased wife, whose birth gave rise to his estate, was dead and the title in remainder was in his dead wife’s sister, who was her heir at law, the defendant’s intestate, Mary F. J. Oehme. On that day, January 5th, 1879, the intestate, Mrs. Oehme, executed and delivered to McCulloch a deed of conveyance in fee of the store, and the same was duly recorded April 10th, 1879. On the 16th of March, 1880, McCulloch leased the store to the complainant for five years from April 1st, 1880, at ari annual rent, of $2,100, payable monthly, for three years, and $2,500 per year for the last two years of the term, and under that lease complainant entered upon and occupied the premises continuously for five years. On May 3d, 1883, McCulloch died intestate, leaving numerous collateral heirs, all non-residents of New Jersey and scattered throughout the other states of the Union. Soon after his death one Kase took out letters of administration upon his estate, and hunted up his heirs, and procured from them a power of attorney to collect the rents of the store. Among the papers of his intestate, Kase found the deed above mentioned from Mrs. Oehme to McCulloch, and called upon Mrs. Oehme (who resided in Newark, and owned the premises next adjoining those occupied by complainant under the lease aforesaid), and talked with her about the title to the store; and the deed just mentioned, and stated to her that he proposed, as agent of the heirs, to collect the rent of the store from complainant, and she thereupon admitted to him that she had made the deed, and that the title was in McCulloch’s heirs, and made no objections to the collection of the rent by Kase as attorney for those heirs. Kase communicated this conversation and the existence of the deed to complainant, exhibited his power of attorney and demanded the rent. Complainant relied upon that statement, and in good faith believed that the title to the premises was in McCulloch’s heirs, and had not the least suspicion that Mrs. Oehme had, or claimed to have, any interest therein, and in that belief paid to Mr. Kase [439]*439the monthly installments of rent for the premises accruing from the death of McCulloch up to the 2Gth of July, 1884, on which date, without any previous notice or claim, Mrs. Oehme commenced an action of ejectment against him to recover the possession of the store. He gave notice to the heirs of McCulloch, through their agent, and a small portion in interest of these appeared and joined in the defence of the action. After two trials before a jury judgment was rendered against him and he then attorned to Mrs. Oehme.

The ground upon which such recovery was had was that the above-mentioned deed from Mrs. Oehme to McCulloch had been procured from her by fraud.

The heirs of McCulloch paid the taxes upon and assessments against the property, which were levied in their names as owners, and also paid the insurance and repairs upon it, and in that way, as well as in collecting the rent, exercised full and exclusive ownership over it, while Mrs. Oehme attempted no acts of ownership prior to the ejectment. Mrs. Oehme during all this time collected the rents of the adjoining premises in person, and visited them in person for that purpose, and knew that complainant was paying the rent of the store in question to the heirs of McCulloch.

The bill alleges that only a small portion in interest of the heirs of McCulloch having been made parties to the ejectment, the remainder are not bound by the verdict and judgment thereon, and, as against those, complainant cannot recover back the moneys paid for rent prior to the commencement of the ejectment without proving the fraud upon which Mrs. Oehme claimed, and, as to those who were made parties, he will have difficulty in so doing by reason of their non-residence and possible lack of pecuniary responsibility.

On the trial of the action for mesne profits complainant offered to prove the foregoing facts as a defence pro tanto to the action, and the same were, on defendant’s motion, all excluded by the court as incompetent, and a verdict directed against complainant for the use and occupation of the premises from the date of Mc-Culloch’s death.

[440]*440I. The first and principal ground of demurrer relied upon is, that the estoppel claimed by complainant is available at law as well as in equity, and having been set up at law and passed upon aud overruled by the court, cannot be the ground of relief in this court.

I think that if the premise of this proposition is true the conclusion follows inevitably.

When a court of law and one of equity each have complete concurrent jurisdiction of a particular right so that either can fully administér it, and it has been set up and considered upon its merits and adjudicated upon in one of them, aud judgment or decree passed upon it one way or the other, the matter then becomes res adjudicaba, and the other court is bound by the result and will not re-examine the matter, although had it been presented to it in the first place it would have dealt with it.

If the equitable defence — admitting it to be such for present-purposes — to the action for mesne profits set out in the bill was available at law, and could be administered and enforced there, and the law court so held but adjudged it to be worthless, then, in my judgment, the complainants have no standing here. But the mere fact that evidence relied upon to prove the estoppel has been offered and rejected by the law court is not of itself proof that that court considered it upon its merits, so to speak, since it may have, been rejected because the estoppel arising out of it was not, in the judgment of the law court, of such a nature as to be capable of being dealt with and administered in that court — in other words, that it was a purely equitable estoppel not available at law.

In order to determine, therefore, whether the judgment of the law court in this case was final and conclusive, it is important inot only to consider what, according to the allegations of the bill, actually occurred in that court, but also what is the precise injury which the complainant will suffer if judgment is entered on the verdict, and he is obliged to pay it. ■

Complainant says that, by reason of Mrs. Oehme’s conduct and silence, he paid the rent which accrued under his lease between the death of McCulloch and the commencement of the suit [441]

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132 A. 224 (New Jersey Court of Chancery, 1926)

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Bluebook (online)
48 N.J. Eq. 436, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ruckelschaus-v-oehme-njch-1891.