St. Joseph Manufacturing Co. v. Daggett

84 Ill. 556
Illinois Supreme Court·Decided January 15, 1877·Published·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

Mr. Justice Soholfield

delivered the opinion of the Court:

Appellee filed his bill in chancery, in the court below, against appellant, its attorney, and the sheriff of Ford county, praying that the execution of a sheriff’s deed to certain lands that had been sold on execution be enjoined, and that the cloud cast upon the title of appellee by such sale be removed. Appellant answered, and also filed its cross-bill praying that it be allowed to redeem from a certain deed of trust, under which appellee’s title is derived. Answer was filed to the cross-bill, as also were replications to the respective answers.

The court, on hearing, denied the prayer of the cross-bill, and granted the prayer of appellee’s bill.

It appears that on the 6th of June, 1871. appellant recovered a judgment, in the circuit court of Ford county, against Henry P. Daggett and Levi A. Dodd, for $457.16, but no execution was issued thereon within one year, nor until the 24th of January, 1873, when execution issued and was levied on the undivided half of the lands in controversy, as the property of Levi A. Dodd, and the same was sold by the sheriff to appellant on the 26th of the month. Meanwhile, appellee (Augustus M. Daggett) and said Levi A. Dodd, being owners, as tenants in common, each of an undivided one-half of these and other lands, after the before-mentioned judgment was rendered and before any execution thereon was issued, that is to say, on the 15th of August, 1871, conveyed them in trust, with power of sale, to E. D. Hosmer, to secure an indebtedness of several thousand dollars to I. Lester Easton; and the conveyance was, shortly thereafter, recorded in the proper office. On the 20th of January, 1873, Dodd conveyed his interest in the lands to Douglas Eastbrook; and on the 20th of January, 1874, appellee quitclaimed his interest therein to Dodd. Hosmer, as trustee, sold the lands at public sale and conveyed them to the purchaser, Anson B. Jenks, on the 23d of June, 1874, for $2260. David A. Patton purchased the lands of Jenks, for appellee, and Jenks conveyed them to Patton on the 14th of July, 1874, and Patton conveyed to appellee September 16, 1874.

Before proceeding to the principal question discussed in the arguments of counsel, it is necessary to notice two objections which are suggested against the validity of the trustee’s sale: First, that notice thereof was not given the requisite length of time before the sale; and second, that after appellee quit-claimed to Dodd, he still had forty acres, not included in that conveyance, but which was embraced in the land described in the deed of trust; and that this should have been sold first.

The power in the deed of trust has this language: “ It shall be lawful for the said party of the second part, his heirs, assigns, or successors in trust, to sell and dispose of said premises, or any part thereof, and all equity of redemption of the said party of the first part, his heirs and assigns therein, either in mass or in separate parcels, as said second party, his heirs, assigns or successors, may prefer, at public auction, at the door of the sheriff’s office, in the city of Chicago, in the county of Cook, in the State of Illinois, for the highest and best price the same will bring in cash, ten days notice of such sale having been first given in one of the newspapers published in said city of Chicago.”

The notice was published in a daily paper, called “The Courier,” the first publication being on the 11th of June, and thereafter the notice was published daily until and including the 23d of June, the day of sale. It is objected, that the newspaper-was obscure and of limited circulation, and that the last publication should have been ten days before the sale. There is no proof in regard to the circulation or character of the paper. It appears to have been a newspaper, and neither the power nor the law requires proof of any specific notoriety or extent of circulation, to make a valid medium for notice by publication. The requirement of the power is not that the last notice shall be published ten days before sale, but simply that ten days’ notice shall be given of the sale. The notice was clearly sufficient, and such was the ruling of this court in the cases, in all respects analogous, of Weld et al. v. Rees, 48 Ill. 428, and Cushman v. Stone et al. 69 id. 520.

In respect to the other objection, it will have been observed that it was entirely discretionary with the trustee, by the terms of the power, whether the trustee should sell in mass or in separate parcels. Even if, upon equitable grounds, appellant would have been entitled to have the forty acre tract, not quitclaimed to Dodd, sold first, it should have made its application to a court of chancery, for that purpose, before the sale. We are aware of no authority which authorizes a sale, otherwise free of legal objection, to be set aside and the title of a bona fide purchaser to be divested, for a cause of this kind. Apart from this, however, this is neither alleged in appellant’s answer as a ground of defense, nor in its cross-bill as aground for the relief thereby prayed; and we are, therefore, for this reason, if for none other, precluded from attaching any importance to it.

The principal ground relied upon for a reversal of the decree is that, by the fraudulent conduct of appellee, in connection with that of Dodd, execution was prevented from being issued on appellant’s judgment until after the expiration of one year from the last day of the term at which the judgment was rendered; that the sale of the trustee was induced by appellee to be made, earlier than it would otherwise have been; and that Jenks purchased for appellee, and not for himself; and it is, therefore, insisted, appellee is equitably estopped from claiming that the deed of trust was a prior lien to appellant’s judgment, and the title derived thereunder paramount -to the title with which it should be invested by the sheriff’s deed.

We have carefully examined, and re-examined, all the evidence preserved in the record, and are unable to yield our concurrence in either of these assumptions in regard to the facts.

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St. Joseph Manufacturing Co. v. Daggett, 84 Ill. 556 (Ill. 1877).

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