Saybe v. Sage

47 Colo. 559
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedJanuary 15, 1910
DocketNo. 5787
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 47 Colo. 559 (Saybe v. Sage) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Saybe v. Sage, 47 Colo. 559 (Colo. 1910).

Opinion

Mr. Justice . Gabbert

delivered the opinion of the court:

Appellee, plaintiff below, brought suit against appellant, as defendant, to quiet title to- the Borton lode mining claim, and to have a tax deed declared void. The judgment was in favor of the plaintiff, from which the defendant appealed.

The first point urged, is, that plaintiff failed to establish he was in possession of the property in controversy at the time he commenced his action. There is testimony from which it appears that defendant took possession of the lode claim in 1893, and possibly it might be said, remained in possession until [561]*561December, 1902, although it does not appear that he exercised any acts of possession over the property from September, 1898, to the commencement of this action. On the 8th of December, 1902, plaintiff had the property surveyed and marked its boundaries with monuments and stakes, and employed a party who performed work thereon for a few days. Suit was commenced by filing a complaint the next day. It does not appear that prior to the commencement., of the action defendant resumed possession. It is urged that taking possession in the manner indicated was tortuous; that it was for the purpose of bringing suit; and that possession acquired in such circumstances will not support an action to quiet title. In taking possession plaintiff committed no violence, nor did he obtain it by the use of unfair or corrupt means. The most that can be claimed is, that he committed a trespass, but he obtained possession peaceably, and even though it may have been for the purpose of bringing his action, a possession so obtained is sufficient for the purpose of maintaining a suit to quiet title. — Phillippi v. Leet, 19 Colo. 246.

It is next- urged that the court erred in rendering judgment in favor of the plaintiff because he failed to show that he was in possession of the property at the time the cause was tried. The defendant at the trial, over the objection of the plaintiff, introduced evidence that he was then in possession. This testimony was irrelevant and incompetent, and was evidently subsequently disregarded by the court. The possession at issue, as made by the pleadings, was the possession as it existed at the time the suit was commenced. If the defendant, by taking possession after the issues were made by the pleadings originally filed, could defeat the plaintiff’s right to maintain his suit (a proposition upon which we express no opinion), it was necessary for him to have pre[562]*562seated that issue by a supplemental answer. Matters occurring after the issues are made by the original pleadings cannot he considered or embraced in a decree unless brought into the case by supplemental pleadings.

Plaintiff designed his title through a patent from the United States to The Rochester Gold Mining Company, a corporation. It is contended by counsel for defendant that this patent was of no force or effect, because of the following facts: The patent was dated August 1,1877. The corporation had been dissolved and a receiver appointed therefor on June 26, 1876. Upon these facts it is urged that no title passed by the patent, because there was no corporate entity to receive it from the United States at the time it was issued. Whether or not this contention is sound, from the facts above narrated, is immaterial, because, from other facts, it is clear that the title to the property was in the corporation at the time the receiver was appointed. The company had purchased the lode claim from the government on the 7th day of June, 1876, and it became entitled to a patent as of that date, although it was not issued until the 1st of August the following year. Where the right to a patent has once become vested in a purchaser of public lands from the government, it is equivalent, so far as the latter is concerned, to a patent actually issued. The execution and delivery of the patent after the right to it has become vested are mere ministerial acts of the officers charged with that duty.—U. S. v. Freyberg, 32 Fed. 195; Simmons v. Wagner, 101 U. S. 260.

A patent does not invest the purchaser with any additional property in the land which it purports to convey. It only gives him better legal evidence of the title which he first acquired by his certificate of purchase issued by the officers of the local land office. [563]*563—Omaha & Grant S. & R. Co. v. Tabor, 13 Colo. 41; Struby-Estabrook Co. v. Davis, 18 Colo. 93.

By virtue of the certificate of purchase issued to the corporation prior to the time a receiver was appointed therefor, the title to the property in controversy was vested in it, and the subsequent issuance of the patent conveyed no additional title but was merely legal evidence of the title acquired by the receiver’s receipt, and inured to the benefit of those who had obtained title through the proceedings to dissolve the corporation and their grantees.

The proceedings to dissolve the corporation were had in, and the receiver therefor appointed by, a court of competent jurisdiction in the state of New York. The decree dissolving the corporation directed that its estate, both real and personal, should vest in the receiver upon his qualifying as specified. Subsequent to the qualification of the latter, the company executed to him a deed for the Borton lode. It is claimed that this deed is of no force or effect for the reason that it was executed without an order of the court in which the dissolution proceedings were pending, and as the corporation had ceased to exist, it had no authority to execute such conveyance. We do not regard this proposition of any moment. If we should adopt the view of counsel for the defendant, to the effect that the appointment of a receiver for a corporation does not vest m him its title to real estate, situate outside the state in which the appointment is made, in support of which Simpkins v. Smith & Parmalee Gold Co., 50 How. Pr. Rep. 56, is cited, then it follows, on the authority of that case, that the Borton lode remained the property of the corporation, and could be disposed of by it as if no receiver had been appointed, and hence, the deed of the corporation to the receiver was valid. On the other hand, if the law be as claimed by counsel for plaintiff, [564]*564that the appointment of a receiver on the dissolution of a corporation vests in the receiver the title to all property of the corporation wherever found, whether within or without the jurisdiction of the court making the appointment, in support of which American Nat’l Bank v. Nat’l Benefit & Casualty Co., 70 Fed. 420; High on Receivers, § 303; and Owen v. Smith, 31 Barb. 641, are cited, the title to the subject-matter of controversy vested in the receiver.

The receiver conveyed the property in controversy to one W. N. Sage. Plaintiff claims title as follows: Sage died intestate, devising the property to his wife and son, the plaintiff. Mrs. Sage died intestate, leaving as her sole heir the plaintiff. Tlie will was admitted to probate in the state of New York, the domicile of deceased. A certified copy thereof, together with certificates to the effect that it had been duly admitted to probate and was proven agreeable to the laws and usage of the state of New York, was admitted in evidence on behalf of plaintiff. This, it is urged, was error, upon the ground that the will had not been admitted to probate in this state.

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Bluebook (online)
47 Colo. 559, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/saybe-v-sage-colo-1910.