Walker v. Doane

108 Ill. 236, 1883 Ill. LEXIS 75
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 20, 1883
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 108 Ill. 236 (Walker v. Doane) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Walker v. Doane, 108 Ill. 236, 1883 Ill. LEXIS 75 (Ill. 1883).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Scholfield

delivered the opinion of the Court:

This case was before us at our March term, 1882, on the appeal of the complainant (the present appellee) from a judgment of the Appellate Court for the First District, affirming the decree of the Superior Court of Cook county. The questions then considered arose upon demurrer to the bill, and our judgment reversed that of the Appellate Court. Reference may be made to the report of the case as published, under the title of Doane v. Walker, 101 Ill. 628, for a full statement of the allegations of the bill and the questions discussed and decided at that time.

After the cause was remanded to the Superior Court of Cook county, the defendant in the bill (the present appellant) answered the bill, putting in issue all its material allegations. The cause came on thereafter to a hearing, and the Superior Court, by its decree then made, found all the material allegations of complainant’s bill true, and that the equities therein are with the complainant; that defendant has, without right, since the date of the administrator’s deed, withheld from complainant the possession of the Ellis avenue property; that complainant, by virtue of the decrees in the dower proceeding, was entitled to the possession of the premises, as against the defendant, since the date of the deed, and held them in fee simple, except as to the dower allowance of $350 per annum, payable quarterly, as provided by the decree; that the dower decree is still in force and unreversed as to the Ellis avenue property; that defendant is insolvent, and has permitted waste on the .premises, as alleged in the bill, and failed to pay taxes, and therefore ordered that defendant surrender possession of the premises to complainant, and in default of such surrender that complainant be entitled to a writ of assistance upon application to the court, and such further order as may be required to put him in possession. The court thereby further found that complainant was entitled to an accounting for occupancy, taxes and waste, and thereupon decreed that the amount so to be found due be set off against the dower allowance to make his title clear from the cloud of arrears of dower under the dower decree, and that it be referred to a master in chancery to take an account between the parties, giving credit to the defendant at the rate of $350 per year from October 15, 1878, (the date of the administrator’s deed,) and to charge against defendant the value of the use of the premises since said October 15, 1878, and until they are surrendered to complainant, and all taxes and assessments accruing since the date of the administrator’s deed are paid by complainant, charging against defendant the proportion equitably chargeable to her • and also that the master report all damages by reason of waste.

At a subsequent day the master made his report in writing to the court. In it he reports, in substance, thus: He finds that complainant has paid out ’since the date of the administrator’s deed, for taxes, the sum of $3517.78, of which he charges the defendant with the payment. He therein charges the defendant with the payment of $1050 as the yearly value of the use of the premises, and he adopts this estimate because it is the amount fixed by the verdict of the jury in the dower proceedings. He does not charge the defendant with any special taxes and assessments paid by complainant, because the work of improvement which such taxes and assessments were levied and collected to pay for, have contributed to the permanent advantage of the property. He does not charge the defendant with the taxes of 1878, because they were a lien on the property when the complainant purchased. He does not charge the defendant with waste, because, in his opinion, the evidence fails to sustain that charge. Exceptions to this report were filed by both parties before the master, and they were all overruled by him. They were renewed in the Superior Court, and all—except one by the complainant, which is of no importance in the consideration of the questions discussed in the argument of counsel,—overruled, and the court thereupon decreed, in accordance with the report of the master, as approved, that the .defendant pay to the complainant $4344.39; that in default of such payment said sum stand and be set off as to tbe quarterly allowance for dower accruing to defendant from the Ellis avenue property, at the rate of $350 a year. The decree of the Superior Court, on appeal to tbe Appellate Court for tbe Eirst District, was in all things affirmed. We are now asked to reverse that affirmance.

When tbe case was here before (Doane v. Walker, supra,) we hel'cl that a court of equity bad jurisdiction to effect the set-off prayed of a part of the rental value of the property against and in discharge of such of tbe installments of dower 'as were then due, and the residue against and in discharge of such as should thereafter become due, until the same should be exhausted, upon the ground of the allegations that during the time the premises were unlawfully detained by the defendant the rental value of the property amounted to double her claim for dower, and she was insolvent. There was, also, it is true, an allegation of waste referred to and treated as a ground of equitable jurisdiction, but that of set-off, on tbe grounds above stated, was held, of itself, to be amply sufficient for that purpose, and it was dwelt upon in the opinion as the most satisfactory. After quoting from Bispham’s work on Equity Jurisprudence, to the effect that ■in cases of set-off, “where there is anything peculiar in the case, so as to render it impossible for exact justice to be done by a court of law under tbe statutes, a court of chancery will afford relief through the medium of an equitable set-off, ” we said: “That the present ease falls directly within ’the rule bere announced there is, in our judgment, no just reason for doubt. * * * To recover a judgment at law against her would not place him in any better position than be now is,—bis estate would still be incumbered with .the lien for unpaid dower. The relief which is indispensable to him is to have such an adjustment of their respective claims as will result in tbe removal of this incumbrance from bis estate, and this can only be enforced in a court of equity. ”

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Bluebook (online)
108 Ill. 236, 1883 Ill. LEXIS 75, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walker-v-doane-ill-1883.