73 Iowa 45 | Iowa | 1887
In the course of making up the issues, the plaintiff set up the record of a suit brought by one Easton against the defendant Davidson in the district court of Sioux county. Said record shows that Easton was then the owner of the tax title in question, and the object of the suit was to quiet said title. The whole of the record in said action was exhibited,
This decree was a full and complete adjudication of the validity and binding effect of the suit to quiet title, and the whole cross-bill of the defendant was dismissed for want of equity. It was also an adjudication that Easton, the plaintiff in the action to quiet title, was at that time the owner of the tax title under which the plaintiff now claims the land; and all the pleadings filed after that by the defendant raised no issue as against said tax title. There was nothing left of the issue between the plaintiff and Davidson, excepting, possibly, mere formal proof by the plaintiff that he was the owner of the tax title. The final disposition of the case was delayed, however, until later, by reason of a petition of intervention, filed by Robert Poole, an intermediate grantee of the tax title, in which he claimed that he had been induced by a fraudulent conspiracy of one Mann and the plaintiff to convey the land to Mann, the plaintiff’s immediate grantor. Issue was joined upon the petition of intervention, and a trial was had thereon; and on the 24th day of May, 1886, a full decree was entered for the plaintiff against the defendant, and against Poole, the intervenor. Erom this last decree the appeal was taken. No reference is made in the notice of appeal to the decree entered against defendant on the 1st day of April, 1886, and the appeal was not taken until more than six months after April 1, 1886.
It is claimed that an appeal should have been taken from that decree, and we think this position of appellee must be sustained. As we have seen, the decree was a full and final adjudication that the defendant was in no position to question the validity of the tax title. He was estopped by the decree quieting title against him. The plaintiff, and those
We have carefully examined the evidence upon the claim made by Poole, and our conclusion is that he is not entitled to any relief. It is true, the evidence shows that before he made the conveyance he was much of the time intoxicated, and at times incompetent by reason thereof to transact business; but he had repeatedly offered the property for sale for $900, when not intoxicated; and the evidence does not show that the amount paid him by Mann was grossly inadequate. The property was not worth $5,000. It was heavily incumbered by mortgages. Poole had paid but $250 of the purchase-money which he contracted to pay for the land, and he conveyed it to Mann subject to the purchase-money mortgages upon it. After he made the conveyance, he assisted in removing the personal property from the farm to Orange City, and delivered it to Mann, and gave him possession of the land without any complaint that he had been defrauded. In view of these facts, and many others which might be stated, he is in no position to demand the rescission of the conveyance. His petition of intervention appears to have been an afterthought; and the afterthought was that of others rather than his own. Affirmed.