Waldron v. Waldron

80 S.E. 811, 73 W. Va. 311, 1913 W. Va. LEXIS 192
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 2, 1913
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 80 S.E. 811 (Waldron v. Waldron) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Waldron v. Waldron, 80 S.E. 811, 73 W. Va. 311, 1913 W. Va. LEXIS 192 (W. Va. 1913).

Opinion

Robinson, Judge :

In this ejectment case, plaintiff, through the verdict of a jury, has judgment against defendants for the boundary of one hundred acres described in the declaration, Defendants seek reversal, assigning many errors.

Plaintiff’s theory of recovery was that defendants, A. C. Waldron and his wife Belle Waldron, were in possession of the land by virtue of a verbal contract of tenancy, made by plaintiff with A. C. Waldron about the time plaintiff purchased the land at a sale under a deed of trust, and that he was entitled to oust them regardless of any question of his title to the land. Defendants denied the lease, or contract of tenancy, and claimed that the land was not within that purchased by plaintiff at the trustee’s sale. Moreover, they contended that even if the contract of tenancy between plain[313]*313tiff and A. C. Waldron was established, still it could not affect the right of Belle Waldron, the wife, who claimed that she had no knowledge of the contract of tenancy, but that she had all along through the period of the occupancy of defendants held the land as her own, so that title had vested in her by adverse possession.

That A. C. Waldron contracted with plaintiff to hold the land as plaintiff’s tenant is a fact which the jury were certainly warranted in finding from the evidence. It seems plain that the jury were justified in finding that plaintiff after his purchase .at the trustee’s sale claimed that his purchase took in the house wherein and the land whereon A. C. Waldron contracted with plaintiff to be the latter’s tenant. It is true that the bounds of the land were not at the time of the contract of tenancy known and defined to plaintiff. But that can not matter, for, in a view which the jury could rightly take, A. C. Waldron contracted with plaintiff to be the latter’s tenant on the undefined claim of land since determined by survey and the trustee’s deed to be the one hundred acres in controversy. Defendants say that plaintiff meant only to lease to A. C. Waldron what plaintiff had purchased at the trustee’s sale, and that an examination of the title which the trustee had power to sell shows that the trustee could not pass title to the land in controversy — that it was outside of what had been vested in the trustee by the deed of trust. The evidence, however, warrants the conclusion that plaintiff meant to make A. C. Waldron tenant of the land in controversy, and that the latter accepted tenancy thereon, though it may be that the same is outside of what plaintiff actually purchased at the trustee’s sale. We do not decide whether- the land in controversy was or was not embraced in that sale. It is unnecessary for that fact to be decided here. Certain it is, the jury could say from the evidence that plaintiff believed he bought the land whereon he located A. C. Waldron as his tenant. Quite as certain it is that they could say from the evidence that A. C. Waldron lived on the land in controversy as the tenant of plaintiff, whether palintiff’s purchase at the trustee’s sale included it or not. They- could find that plaintiff leased to A. C. Waldron at a time when the ■former claimed by the purchase at the trustee’s sale; that [314]*314the exact lines of plaintiff:is claim wgr.e not then ascertained; that plaintiff located. A. C. Waldron, as tenant ,on .what h,e claimed by the purchase; that a subsequent survey and a deed from the trustee .make what plaintiff claimed to purchase to include all the tract in controversy; and. that, under the tenancy, A. C. Waldron has been in possession, of all .that tract, since he leased all that plaintiff claimed. It matters not, as against the tenant, whether plaintiff took.good title, by the trustee’s sale. It was unnecessary fpr plaintiff tq-show good title to the-land, for the tenant-could not deny the-title of his landlord. This proposition certainly.needs.no citation of authorities to .support it. ■ • ■ . .

-Defendants, however, maintain, that the .contract of tenancy can not apply to. Belle Waldron, the wife of A. ’Waldron; that she claimed the land in controversy, prior to the contract of tenancy and has lived thereon -under her- claim, without knowledge of -the contract of tenancy for a period sufficiently long to -vest title in her as .against plaintiff, by adverse.possession. Of course, A. 0. Waldron could not show, such title, as against his landlord if -it existed; Can Belle Waldron, .his wife, show it? -We are quite sure that she can.not under the facts and circumstances appearing... The wife simply says she claimed the land, beginning, at a time which .from other evidence .appears to have been shortly prior to the lease. She nowhere shows what such .claim was based on — what distinct separate estate she had in it.. She nowhere shows that plaintiff had notice of a claim to the land on her. part, -before.plaintiff dealt with her husband, constituting him tenant of -the premises. Indeed the whole .of, the- evidence must be taken as showing that the only right which Belle Waldron asserts is the bare fact that she has been.living on the land as a wife with her husband for fifteen years, dating from about the time of the husband’s making the contract of tenancy with plaintiff. As a matter. of law, the slight evidence relied on by her in support of. a separate claim to the land may be ignored. Her claim, supported no more than it is, the law Will not recognize. All the time that she alleges to have claimed she was living on the- land with her husband, who, she admits, was acting fully and with .authority as to-all matters in -relation to the land. He was the head of the family. They were in the close con[315]*315fidential relation of husband and wife. .It is not within reason to suppose that throughout a long period of tenancy on his part he would keep the fact of tenancy concealed from his wife, so that she could not repudiate the same. They were in mutual conjugal relation. We must judge them accordingly. “There could be but one actual seizen or occupancy of the premises at,the same time, and.the law.will attribute that pccu-pancy to the husband, and not to his wife. ’’ Meier v. Meier, 105 Mo. 431. Ordinarily, the law will not permit the husband to be tenant of another and-the wife with whom he is living on the very land leased by him to be claiming it. adyersely to the lessor at the same time. Though the deed is not introduced in evidence, it seems that the wife claims the land by a deed from her husband, who, as far as the record shows, never had any right therein except as tenant. He. made such deed to his wife about the time that plaintiff purchased,at.the trustee’s sale— about the time he leased the land from plaintiff. If she had bona fide separate claim, why this deed? She took no title thereby; the grantor had none to give her. It may be that her claim and .that this deed antedated the contract of tenancy. The evidence does not clearly disclose. Nor does it matter. Similarly it has been held: “Where a trespasser conveys the property to his wife and they continue to reside upon the premises with their children, her possession is subordinate to that of her husband since she takes no title by such conveyance, and his subsequent taking of a lease from the true owner is binding upon the wife as far as it operates as a recognition of the true title.” C. & A. R. R. Co. v. Keegan, 185 Ill. 70. Belle Waldron must be considered- a tenant of plaintiff with her husband. It must be assumed that she ‘was there merely as his wife, under the tenancy which he contracted — that she was there in recognition of title in plaintiff.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
80 S.E. 811, 73 W. Va. 311, 1913 W. Va. LEXIS 192, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/waldron-v-waldron-wva-1913.