38 Vt. 464 | Vt. | 1866
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The plaintiff’s declaration alleges that the defendant conveyed certain land to the plaintiffs’ intestate, by deed dated October I2th, 1854; that the deed contains the usual covenants of seizin and against incumbrances. The first count in the declaration alleges, as breach of the covenant against incumbrances, that the defendant’s grantor, (one Lyman Severance), on the 26th day of October, 1854, at the time of the execution of his deed to the defendant, purporting to eonvey the title of the land therein described to the defendant, was neither seized nor possessed of the land, that he had no title to it, and that Severance, prior to that time, viz : on the 12th.day of June, 1852, had conveyed the premises to one Rufus Goss. The 2d count alleges a breach of the covenant of seizin in this, that at the time of the execution of the deed by the defendant to the plaintiffs’ intestate, one Rufus Goss was the owner of the land. The main question is whether Lyman Severance, on the 12th day of June, 1852, at the time of the execution of his deed to Goss, had a valid title to an undivided moiet-y of the land described in the plaintiff’s declaration. It is con« ceded that George N. Farewell, on the 2d day of January, 1851, owned the land, and that by his quit-claim deed of that date, conveyed it to the defendant and Lyman Severance, which deed was duly acknowledged by Farewell, January 3d, 1852, and recoi'ded June 14th, 1852. It is evident, under our statute, that neither an acknowledgment of the deed by Farewell, nor its record, was essential to its validity as against the grantor and his heirs. That deed conveyed the land to the defendant and Lyman Severance as tenants in common. On the 12th day of Oct., 1854, at the time the defendant executed his dead to the plaintiffs’ intestate, Rufus Goss held the title to one undivided moiety of the premises under the conveyance from Severance, of June 12th, 1852,.unless the title of Goss was defeated by the sale of the land to defendant for taxes, made October 3d, 1851,- and the constable’s deed to defendant executed in pursuance of that tax sale on the 14th day of December, 1852. It is claimed by the defendant that the right of the plaintiff to recover in this case depends wholly on the invalidity of the title derived to the defendant
The quit-claim deed from Severance to the defendant, under date of October 26, 1854, conveyed no right or title to the defendant, and for the obvious reason that Severance, at that time, had no^title to, nor interest in, the premises. Whatever interest or benefit Severance had derived from the constable’s deed to the defendant enured to the benefit of Goss.
The title of Goss, derived from Severance, under his deed of June 12th, 1852, constituted a breach of the defendant’s covenant of seizin,