Sharpe v. Baker

96 N.E. 627, 51 Ind. App. 547, 1911 Ind. App. LEXIS 105
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 28, 1911
DocketNo. 7,186
StatusPublished
Cited by54 cases

This text of 96 N.E. 627 (Sharpe v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sharpe v. Baker, 96 N.E. 627, 51 Ind. App. 547, 1911 Ind. App. LEXIS 105 (Ind. Ct. App. 1911).

Opinions

Lairy, J.

— This action was brought by appellants, who are husband and wife, to quiet their title as tenants by the entireties to the real estate described in the complaint, and also to eject appellees Morgan P. Baker and Celestus Baker, his wife, from the possession of said real estate, and to set aside and cancel a certain mortgage on said real estate executed by said Baker and wife to appellee James B. Thompson.

The complaint was in the usual form, and no question is raised as to its sufficiency. The defendant filed a second paragraph of answer, to which appellants addressed a demurrer for want of facts. The trial court overruled this demurrer, to which ruling appellants excepted, and refusing to plead further, judgment was entered against them for costs. The only question presented for decision is the sufficiency of this paragraph of answer.

[551]*551Prom the pleadings Reappears that a joint judgment was taken against appellees at a time when they were the owners as tenants by the entirety of the real estate in controversy, and that an execution was issued on said judgment against both of said appellants, and levied on the estate so held by them as entireties. It further appears that said land was regularly advertised and sold under said execution as the property of appellants, and that after the year of redemption had expired the sheriff made a deed for said real estate to the purchaser at said sale on execution. Appellees Baker and wife claim title and possession under and by virtue of said sheriff’s deed, while appellants claim that the estate held by them as tenants by the entireties was not subject to sale on execution, and that the sheriff’s deed, based on such levy and sale, did not have the effect to divest their title, and that they are still the owners thereof as tenants by the entire-ties. If the real estate held by appellants as tenants by the entireties was subject to levy and sale in satisfaction of a joint judgment rendered against them, then the demurrer to said paragraph of answer was properly overruled; but, if it was not subject to levy and sale in satisfaction of said judgment the demurrer should have been sustained.

The question we are thus called on to decide is entirely new. The industrious and able attorneys who have briefed this case and argued it orally before the court have been unable to cite a ease from any court in which the question has been decided. The writer of this opinion has made diligent search in the hope of finding a decision of some court which might serve as a precedent, but without avail. We must therefore determine this question from a consideration of the legal principles which relate to the creation of estates by the entireties, and which govern the rights and liabilities arising therefrom as affecting the holders of such estates.

[552]*5521. 2. [551]*551It is claimed by appellants that an estate by entireties has been always regarded by the courts as one created for the enjoyment of the husband and wife during coverture, [552]*552and that such an estate was intended to he preserved for the use of the family as a homestead, and that it should be protected by the courts against the improvidence of either or both, to the end that it may be so preserved. This contention has led us to inquire as to the source and origin of estates by entireties. At common law such estates were treated as a species of joint tenancy. “An estate in joint tenancy is an estate held by two or more tenants jointly, with an equal right in all to share in the enjoyment of the land during their lives. Upon the death of any one of the tenants, his share vests in the survivors. Four requisites must exist to constitute a joint tenancy, viz.: First. The tenants must have one and the same interest. Second. The interests must accrue by one and the same conveyance. Third. The interests must commence at one and the same time. Fourth. It must be held by one and the same undivided possession. 6 Am. and Eng. Ency. Law 891. A joint tenancy can be created in no other'way than by purchase, and its distinguishing feature is that of survivorship.” Case v. Owen (1894), 139 Ind. 22, 38 N. E. 395, 47 Am. St. 253. In the ancient language of the law, joint tenants were seized of the estate per my et per tout, that is to say, each was the owner of his equal share for the purpose of immediate alienation, but for the purpose of possession and survivorship each owned the whole. 1 Preston, Estates *136; Wilkins v. Young (1896), 144 Ind. 1, 41 N. 68, 41 N. E. 590, 55 Am. St. 162.

3. By a fiction of the common law, the husband and wife were regarded as one person, the legal existence of the wife being suspended during coverture, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband. 1 Blackstone’s Comm. *442. Upon this legal fiction of the unity of husband and wife rests all the distinctions and peculiarities which distinguish the estate by entireties from other joint estates. “It is the legal notion of unity of two persons, who are husband and wife, which gives occasion [553]*553to the construction of an entirety of interest on their tenancy. ” 1 Preston, Estates *132. An estate by entireties is created when a husband and wife take an estate to themselves jointly by grant or devise, or by limitation of a use made to them during coverture. 1 Preston, Estates *131. On account of the unity of persons of husband and wife by marriage, they take the estate as one person, and so where an estate was limited to a husband and wife and to a third person jointly, such third person,' as against the husband and wife, became an owner as joint tenant of the one-half of the estate, and the husband and wife became the owners of the other one-half as tenants by entireties as between themselves, but as to such third person they held as joint tenant.

4. By reason of the common law fiction heretofore mentioned, the husband and wife, being one person in law, were each incapable of holding any separate interest in an estate so acquired. They could not take by moieties, they were each siezed of the whole, and neither was seized of any divisible part, and so, as a consequence of the unity of their persons, they were said to hold such estate per my et non per tout. 2 Blackstone’s Comm. *182. The right of the survivor to take the whole estate is common, both to estates in joint tenancy and estates by entireties; but the right by which the survivor holds in each is not the same. If a joint tenant dies during the existence of the joint tenancy, his moiety goes to the survivor by the jus accrescendi, or right of survivorship; but when a tenant by entirety dies, the survivor holds the entire estate, not by virtue of any right which he acquires as survivor, but by virtue of the original grant or devise. On the vesting of an estate by entireties, both tenants, by reason of the unity of their person by marriage, become seized of the whole estate, and neither is seized of any divisible part thereof; and therefore on the death of one, the survivor, being already seized of the whole, can acquire no new or additional interest by virtue [554]*554of his survivorship. Beddingfield v. Estill & Newman (1906), 118 Tenn. 39, 100 S. W. 108, 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 640.

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Bluebook (online)
96 N.E. 627, 51 Ind. App. 547, 1911 Ind. App. LEXIS 105, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sharpe-v-baker-indctapp-1911.