112 Kan. 604 | Kan. | 1923
Lead Opinion
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is an action brought by C. B. D. Colver, to whom a warranty deed in the usual form had been executed, against Eugene Mclnturff and his wife, who were the grantors in the first of a series of conveyances (two of which were quitclaims) which ended in the warranty deed to the plaintiff, for a breach of the covenants of the deed executed by the defendants. Judgment was rendered for the defendants and the plaintiff appeals.
The greater number of state courts which have passed directly upon the matter hold that covenants of warranty and seizin in a deed by a grantor who has neither title nor possession to a grantee who does not obtain possession do not run with the land. A less number hold that the majority doctrine is merely a specific application of the more general rule that a covenant after its breach becomes a mere personal claim and does not run with the land, and that this rule is based solely upon the nonassignability of a chose in action at common law and therefore should not be followed in jurisdictions where such assignments are permitted. The decisions upon the point are collected in notes in 14 L. R. A., n. s., 514 and L. R. A. 1916 D, 613. Later cases bearing on the matter are: Eli v. Trent, 241 S. W. (Ky.) 324; Merchants Natl. Bank v. Otero, 24 N. M. 598; Beecher v. Tinnin, 26 N. M. 59; Gulf Coal & Coke Co. v. Musgrove, 195 Ala. 219.
A detailed discussion of a question upon which so much has been written seems unnecessary. Our view is that the covenants of a deed which is made by a grantor who has neither title nor possession to a grantee who obtains no possession do not run with the land and do not upon that principle pass with succeeding conveyances; and this not merely because the covenants are broken as soon as the deed is made, resulting in the accrual of a personal cause of action, but also because inasmuch as the grantor gives no right to the land and the grantee takes none, no interest in it is passed and there is nothing to which the covenants can attach and the transfer of which they can follow. They cannot run with the realty because they have not become attached to it. In the situation stated, if the grantee should die intestate his heirs would take nothing. They
Whether in the situation stated the right to recover damages for the breach of covenants would pass by the grantee’s execution of a deed, by virtue of its provisions other than those essential to the passing of such title to the realty as he had, is a different question and one the answer to which depends upon-the contents of the deed. Obviously, there might be inserted in a deed an express assignment of that right, which would be effective. There is good ground for the argument that one who, having received a deed with the usual covenants, but having neither title nor possession, executes to another a like document, intends thereby to transfer by assignment all rights acquired under the deed to him, including that 'of recovering damages for the breach of covenants. But he who executes a mere quitclaim, which involves no assertion of title on his part and does not purport to pass any, and in which he undertakes no responsibility, cannot in our judgment be regarded as intending to transfer anything more than such interest in the property as he may have, and such covenants as in strictness run with the land — he gives only such rights as his heir would receive should he die intestate, which in this case would be nothing.
We do not find this distinction between a deed of general warranty and a quitclaim to have been the basis of a decision upon the question whether a right of action was assigned, but in discussions of the subject suggestions are made as to the matter depending on the language of the deed, and in most of the cases where such right is held to have passed although the covenant had already been broken, the conveyance has been one- with warranties. It is not necessary now to decide whether or not a warranty deed should be deemed to operate as an assignment of a claim for damages for a broken covenant, but we hold that a mere quitclaim does not do it.
2. The plaintiff contends that whatever effect the want of possession by the grantor in a warranty deed might otherwise have upon the question whether its convenants run with the land is removed by the statute reading: “Any person claiming title to real estate may, notwithstanding there may be an adverse possession thereof, sell and convey his interest therein, in the same manner and with like effect as if he was in the actual possession thereof.” (Gen. £>tat. 1915, § 2055.) He asserts that such is the purpose of the stat
3. Moreover, the Missouri decision did not amount to a definite interpretation of the statute. In the course of the opinion of one of the judges, it was said:
“The fourth section of the act concerning conveyances empowers any person claiming title to any real estate, notwithstanding there' may be an adverse possession thereof, to sell and convey his interest therein in the same manner and with the like effect as if he was in the actual possession. It is conceived that this provision does away with that rule of the common law which required a grantor of land to be seized thereof, when he makes his deed of conveyance, in order that his covenant of warranty may attach to and run with the land. This section was introduced to enable persons having claims to land without possession, or even in case of adverse possession, to alien such lands as though they were seized thereof.” (p. 96.)
The section was referred to in Allen v. Kennedy, 91 Mo. 324, 330, “as having some bearing on the question” of covenants running with the land, and portions of the opinion in that case containing such reference were quoted in Coleman v. Lucksinger, 224 Mo. 1, 16, 27. These utterances, while tending in that direction, fall short of a definite determination that the statute has the effect claimed by the plaintiff.
The judgment is affirmed.
Rehearing
OPINION DENYING A REHEARING.
(Filed Feb. 19, 1923.)
The opinion of the court was delivered by
In a motion for a rehearing the plaintiff in support of his contention that the interpretation of a Kansas statute (Gen. Stat. 1915, § 2055) adopted from Missouri in 1855, repealed in 1859, and reenacted in 1868, is controlled by a Missouri decision rendered in 1857,.invokes the rale that “A statute literally or substantially reenacting a prior statute after its words have received a judicial interpretation must be regarded as adopted with knowledge of such construction and with the intention that it should thereafter be interpreted in the same way.” (Black’s Law of Judicial Precedents, § 75.) The same principle has been thus expressed: “It is a settled rule of statutory construction that when a statute or a clause or provision thereof has been construed by the court of last resort of a state, and the same is substantially reenacted, the legislature adopts such construction, unless the contrary is clearly shown by the language of the act, or the rules of statutory construction have been changed.” (25 R. C. L. 1075.) In each case the obvious meaning is that where a court of last resort interprets a statute of its own state which is afterwards reenacted the reenactment is deemed to adopt the construction as well as the language of the former act. If it has ever been held that the legislature in reenacting a statute of its own state is regarded as accepting an interpretation placed upon the same language by the court of the state in which it was first used, in the course of an opinion handed down after it had been copied by the other, such search as we have had opportunity to make has failed to discover it, and the logic of such a decision, if found, would not appeal to us strongly. The texts above quoted appear to recognize the rale we have already applied, that where the legislature in framing a law
To prevent a possible misapprehension it may be said that in the original opinion we do not assert that none of the warranties of such a deed as that executed to the plaintiff would run with the land if the grantee had received either title or possession under it; nor do we question that a covenant that runs with the land passes by a quitclaim deed.
A statement in the original opinion that the trial court sustained a demurrer to the petition was an inadvertence which has already been corrected and which did not affect the result, the facts stated in the opinion, upon which the decision was based, being included in an agreed statement and not merely pleaded.
The motion for a rehearing is overruled.