Young's adm'r & Bowyer v. McClung

9 Va. 336
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedSeptember 2, 1852
StatusPublished

This text of 9 Va. 336 (Young's adm'r & Bowyer v. McClung) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Young's adm'r & Bowyer v. McClung, 9 Va. 336 (Va. 1852).

Opinion

Lee, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

It appears to this court that the severaPWounds of objection successively taken by the intestateYUrthe appellant Edins, and upon which he sought to arrest the collection of his bonds for the purchase money of the land bought of George Hughart and assigned to the appellee McClung, prior to the deeree of the 19th of October 1842, on the original bill of the said Young against George Hughart and others, and the cross bill filed in that cause by the appellee McClung, were either unsupported by proof or successfully removed by the measures adopted by the parties interested, as disclosed by the record of said cases. The loss of a portion of the land, including a valuable coal bank, by reason of an outstanding paramount title, was wholly unsupported by proof; and in fact the equity [350]*350set up in the original bill upon that foundation was no^ reked upon by the said Young in his supplemental The encumbrance which it was charged rested 1TPorL Bie laud by reason of the vendor’s lien for the ^P8*^ balance of purchase money due to the said Boardman from George Hughart, Young’s vendor, was effectually removed by the payment of that balance ^y the said Charles Hughart for and in the name of his father, to John A. North, the agent of the said j3oar(jmanj October 1836. And the difficulty which had been interposed, founded upon the defective character of the conveyance from Joseph F. Caldwell, as the agent and attorney in fact of the said Boardman, for the land in controversy to George Hughart, was met by the cross bill filed by William McClung convening the said Young, George Hughart and the executors and heirs at law of the said Boardman (who had in the mean time departed this life) before the court, with a view to obtain by its decree a new and perfect conveyance of the legal title to the land from the heirs of the said Boardman to the said George Hughart, and through him to vest the same in the said Young. And all the questions which had been raised by the said Young in his original and amended and supplemental bills touching his obligation to complete the contract for the purchase of the said land from the said George Hughart, and to pay the bonds given by him for the purchase money therefor, which had been assigned to the said McClung, must be regarded certainly, as between the said Young on the one hand and the said George Hughart and McClung on the other, as finally and forever settled and adjudicated by the decree of the 19th of October 1842. That decree affirmed that the alleged loss of part of the land, including the coal bank, by reason of an outstanding paramount title thereto, was not sustained by proof; and that if it had been proven, it was a claim sound[351]*351ing purely in damages, and not the subject of relief in a court of equity; and that the clouds which rested upon the title to the land by reason of the alleged in the bills had been removed, and that a good title could then be had to the same, for which due provision was thereby made.

'It further appears to this court whether the appellant Bowyer, the surety of the said Young in the forthcoming bonds given by him upon the judgments upon his three bonds, for the purchase money of the said land, assigned to the said McClung, not being a party in either of the causes in which the decree of the 19th of October 1842 was pronounced, was or was not bound by that decree, is a question not material to be decided in these causes; because if it be affirmed that the said appellant Bowyer did not so stand in privity with his principal Young, by virtue of such his suretyship as aforesaid, as to be concluded by the decree of the 19th of October 1842, even in the two cases commenced and prosecuted by him conjointly with Young, and after his death with his administrator, who were concluded by that decree, yet it appears that the original and supplemental bills of the said Bowyer and Young, filed in the Circuit court of Fayette, and subsequently transferred to the Circuit court of Greenbrier, and the original bill filed by the appellants Bowyer and Young’s administrator, in the Circuit court of Greenbrier in March 1847, (which constitute the two cases in those names now in judgment,) exhibit copies of the proceedings of the case of the said Young, and the cross bill of McClung, which resulted in the decree of the 19th of October 1842, and also of the case of Charles Hughart against the said George Hughart and Joseph H. Caldwell, and they are expressly made part and parcel of these cases. Thus the court on the hearing of these causes, on the 23d of October 1849, had all the proceedings in the [352]*352other causes before it expressly made part of these causes by the appellants Bowyer and Young themselves, presenting all the facts and circumstances of the whole case, and was called upon to decide as between Young and Bowyer on the one hand, and George Hughart and McClung on the other, the same questions which had been determined by the decree'of October 1842, between the latter and the said Young, together with another question presently to be noticed upon the same state of facts and proofs, though presented in a somewhat different state of pleadings; and if the court was right in its adjudication of those questions by its decree of the 19th of October 1842, as in the opinion of this court it was, it did not err in coming to the same conclusions in the decree of the 23d of October 1849. It is true these causes were heard in part upon a demurrer to the amended and supplemental bills in the one case, and a demurrer to the original bill in the other; and it may be said that those bills upon their own allegations showed ample equity," and a proper case for relief, and that the demurrers therefore should have been overruled and the defendants put to answer as to> the facts. But considering the allegations of these bills in the connections which they themselves establish with the other causes, and as illustrated by all the facts and circumstances of the whole controversy thus invoked into these causes, it appears to this court that the whole case might have been as safely and correctly passed upon, by the court, and the legal effect of those facts and circumstances as accurately perceived and determined as if the same had been presented to the court by full answers, stating all the facts again in terms.

Thus in effect it appears to this court that after the decree of the 19th of October 1842, there remained for discussion between these parties but the single question presented by the claim of Charles Hughart, to [353]*353be substituted to tbe rights of Boardman and his lien upon the said land, by virtue of the payment made by him to North, the agent of Boardman, of the balance of the purchase money due from George Hughart m October 1836, And it appears to this court that this claim of the said Charles Hughart was without any just foundation whatever; that the said payment made by him to North was for and in the name and behalf of his father, the said George Hughart, and for the very purpose of satisfying the debt due to the said Board-man, and extinguishing the lien which he might otherwise assert upon the land; and thus facilitate the collection of the bonds of Young, which had been assigned by his father to the said McClung. And that therefore no lien was created by subrogation or otherwise in favor of the said Charles Hughart, upon the said land, by reason of such payment, at least as against the said Young, the purchaser, and McClung, the holder of the bonds assigned by the said George Hughart.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
9 Va. 336, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/youngs-admr-bowyer-v-mcclung-va-1852.