Rucker v. Hyde

118 Tenn. 358
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 15, 1906
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 118 Tenn. 358 (Rucker v. Hyde) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rucker v. Hyde, 118 Tenn. 358 (Tenn. 1906).

Opinion

Mr. Justice McAlister

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an ejectment bill to recover the possession of a tract of land in Davidson county and also for the purpose of removing clouds from the complainant’s title. The chancellor and the court of chancery appeals concurred in pronouncing a decree in favor of complainants. The defendants appealed and have assigned errors. The facts appearing from the report of the court of chancery appeals are:

[360]*360That on December 19, 1894, and prior thereto, the defendant Wee Hyde was the owner of the land in litigation. On that date Hyde and wife conveyed the land in trust to H. 0. Passing to secure a note for $2,500 that day executed to complainant Rucker for borrowed money. The 'deed of trust provided that the note to Rucker should mature in .three years and the interest thereon was payable semiannually. The deed of trust provided that, upon default in the payment of the note when due, the trustee was empowered, “upon giving twenty days’ notice by daily publication in some newspaper published in Nashville, Davidson county, Tennessee, to sell said property at the courthouse door in said county, to the highest bidder, for cash, and free from the equity of redemption, homestead, and dower.” It further provided that the creditor might bid at any sale under this conveyance. The trustee was authorized to make a deed to the purchaser, and to apply the proceeds of sale to the payment of the note, and to hold any surplus subject to the order of, etc.

It further appears that, default having been made in the payment of the note secured in the deed of trust, the trustee, September 8, 1898, advertised and sold the land under the terms of the trust deed, when it was bid in by complainants Rucker and Furnish at the price of $2,500, and on the same day the trustee, Lassing, executed to the purchasers a deed to the property. This deed recites as follows:

“And whereas, the said Wee Hyde defaulted in the [361]*361payment of the interest on said note, and defaulted and failed to pay the principal of the said note when the same became due and payable, and failed to pay the taxes accruing- on the property described in said deed of trust, and I, Henry C. Lassing, trustee under said deed of trust, after due advertisement in the Nashville Banner for a period of four weeks, did, on Thursday, September 8, 1898, at the courthouse door in Davidson county, sell the hereinbefore described property to the highest bidder for cash, and the said property was struck off and sold to J. J. Rucker and J. J. Furnish at their bid of $2,500, the same being the highest bid.”

The deed from the trustee to the purchasers is full and explicit in its recitals of the sale, etc., and shows a literal compliance with the powers conferred on the trustee. Complainants did not deraign their title into a grant from the State, nor was such a deraignment necessary, since complainants and defendant both claimed to.derive title from a common source, viz., Wee Hyde.

Complainants relied alone upon the deed made to them by the trustee under his foreclosure sale, together with the other facts herein stated.

It is said on behalf of defendant that complainant has.failed to show title to the land in controversy, for the reason there is no evidence that the trust deed to H. C. Lassing was foreclosed in accordance with its terms, except the recitals in the deed of Lassing, trustee, to complainants, and it is insisted that such recitals [362]*362are not proved against the defendant Mrs. Judie 0. Hyde. It appears that the defendant Mrs. Judie 0. Hyde, wife of the defendant Wee Hyde, now claims title to the land through a tax sale made by the county trustee September 6, 1899, for taxes for the year 1898, assessed to her husband, Wee Hyde. On the 27th day of September, 1902, Ben E. Webb, clerk of the circuit court of Davidson county, executed to the defendant Dr. D. F. Banks, a tax deed conveying this land to him for the sum of |29.31. March 13, 1903, Banks executed a quitclaim deed to defendant Judie 0. Hyde. Mrs. Hyde is now claiming- the land in controversy under said tax proceedings, and her insistence is that she is not bound by the recitals in the deed executed by the trustee, Passing, to the complainants.

As already stated, Mrs. Judie 0. Hyde joined her husband in the deed of trust to H. 0. Passing, trustee, and the question now presented is whether the recitals in the deed of the trustee to the purchaser at the foreclosure sale are prima fame evidence against Mrs. Hyde, so as to obviate the necessity of any proof on the part of complainants that the foreclosure sale was conducted in accordance with the provisions and directions of the deed of trust. .

• In the case of Henderson v. Galloway, 8 Humph., 692, this court said:

“When, by the terms of the deed, the trustee is required, before making a sale, to give notice to the bar-gainor of the time and place of sale, the giving of such [363]*363notice is in the nature of a condition precedent, and, if not complied with, the sale is unauthorized and void, and will communicate no title to the purchaser; and, if the requirement be that personal notice shall be giyen, the trustee cannot substitute notice by advertisement in a newspaper, or at some public place or places, because not within the scope of his authority, and also because such a departure on the part of the trustee might be made to defeat the very object of the requirement by enabling him to sell the property without the knowledge of the party making the deed. The court therefore held that the recital in the trustee’s deed that he had given the notice to the grantor required by the terms of the deed is not, as against persons claiming as purchasers under a subsequent deed of trust by the same grantor, prima facie evidence of the fact of his having done so.”

It will be observed that the parties sought to be hound by the recitals in the trustee’s deed in the last-mentioned case were purchasers under a subsequent deed of trust by the same grantor. Such purchasers were not parties to the trust deed wherein the recitals were made, nor were they privies in estate or blood, and in this respect that case is to be distinguished from the one now under consideration. The case of Swainson v. Scotty 111 Tenn., 140, 76 S. W., 909, was an action of ejectment to recover a tract of land in Monroe county, Tennessee. Defendant denied complainant’s title and averred a superior title to all the land claimed. [364]*364Complainants, in the deraignment of their title from the State, failed to produce a grant to the land in controversy. The existence of the original grant was sought to be established by secondary evidence; that is to say, the complainants, in introducing the links in their chain of title, produced certain deeds which on their face referred to the original grant. And it was insisted that these recitals were sufficient to establish 'the fact that the grant did issue. This court held:

“It is clear that the mere recitals in said deed are not competent to establish the existence of the grant against the defendant. Such recitals would, of course, bind the original parties to the deeds and their privies in estate or blood, and all those claiming under them; but they do not bind strangers to the deed in which the recitals were made, nor those who claim by title paramount and by an adverse title. Newell on Ejectment, 343; Wilcox v.

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Bluebook (online)
118 Tenn. 358, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rucker-v-hyde-tenn-1906.