98 Mo. 159 | Mo. | 1889
— Ejectment for certain lots in the Fifth addition to the city of Louisiana. Betty Parry is
There are. three prominent questions in this cause, to be decided. The controlling questions thus referred to are these : (1) The effect of the sale under the deed of trust, the life-tenant being the purchaser and recipient of the deed; (2) the effect of the tax proceedings and sale, the life-tenant being the only party defendant to the tax judgment, and (3) whether the three years’ statute of limitation barred the plaintiffs of their action.
I. Marshall S. Allen, being the life-tenant, occupied such relations towards the remaindermen that he could not deal to his own advantage, and to their disadvantage by buying in the land under the trust deed, and thereby defeat their title and acquire an independent title of his own. “A release of a right made to a particular tenant for life, or in tail, shall aid or benefit him or them in the remainder.” Co. Litt., secs. 453 and 267b.
Thus it has been ruled, that if a tenant for life, after a sale of the property for taxes has occurred, obtains a release to himself of the right thus acquired, he takes under such release according to his title, and the remaindermen according to theirs. Varney v. Stevens, 22 Me. 331. And, if a tenant for life buy in an
Taking the foregoing premises as true, whatever title the purchaser acquired at the tax sale did not extend beyond the life estate of Marshall S. Allen.
II. But there is another reason for announcing the same conclusion : The tax suit was brought against Marshall S. Allen alone; the remaindermen were not made parties. They did not claim under him, but by an independent title, one created by the deed of Betty Parry; so that the judgment in the tax suit, in any event, bound only the life-tenant, and not the remainder-men. Troyer v. Wood, 96 Mo. 478; Chamberlain v. Blodgett, 96 Mo. 482.
III. Now, as to the possession of the defendants under the tax deed, for the period of three years, it has been recently ruled by this court in Bartlett v. Kauder, 97 Mo. 356, that the short statute of limitations in reference to tax sales, only applies to sales and deeds made under the old law, by collectors.
For these reasons, the judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded with directions to the trial court to enter a judgment for plaintiffs.
On motion, the judgment was so modified that the cause was remanded for new trial.