64 P. 77 | Kan. | 1901
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The undisputed evidence adduced upon the trial below clearly shows that defendant A. L. Burditt furnished the money with which entry of this property was made by John C. Adams from the government, and in addition thereto paid said Ad
What, then, are the rights of the respective parties to this property ? The court and counsel for plaintiffs below have proceeded upon the assumption that the deed from John C. Adams to defendant below is, in law, a mortgage held by defendant to secure the repayment of the money expended in the purchase and improvement of this property; that, because of the facts as alleged, the collection of this debt by defendant A. L. Burditt is barred by lapse of time, and the plaintiffs below are entitled to a judgment quieting the title in themselves. To this view of this case we do not yield our assent. It is not warranted by the record, and the position assumed is unsound in law.
Again, the title to this property rests in the defendant below. It was placed there by John C. Adams, who had the right to convey, not by A. K. Burditt. Whatever rights A. K. Burditt or his heirs possess in this property arise not from the nature of the deed from John C. Adams to defendant, but from the agreement of defendant to convey to A. K. Burditt upon a performance of the conditions imposed. It is clear that if this deed in fact is, as between defendant and A. K. Burditt or his heirs, a mortgage, it must, by force of necessity, constitute a mortgage as between John C. Adams and defendant, and, being in fact but a mortgage, the legal title to the property rests in Adams, not in defendant below. Hence, its cancelation by payment of the debt would leave the title to the property not in A. K. Burditt or his heirs but in Adams — a proposition controverted positively by both the defendant below and Adams, and a consummation not desired and which would not benefit plaintiffs below. It has been frequently ruled that where the deed is to one party and the defeasance is to a third person, the transaction cannot be a mortgage, and that a deed without a defeasance, either oral or written, cannot be a mortgage. (Treat v. Strickland, 23 Me. 234; Low v. Henry, 9 Cal. 538; Lance’s Appeal, 112 Pa. St. 436, 4 Atl. 375; Tiede. Real Prop. § 303.)
The title to the property in controversy being in defendant below and being held by him subject only to the condition that he would convey to his brother, A. K. Burditt, upon payment of the money he had paid
The judgment of the district court is therefore reversed.