111 Tenn. 128 | Tenn. | 1903
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This bill is brought to protect and quiet complainant’s possession of the lands described in the pleadings, the threatened injury to his possession being the impending execution of a writ of possession which the defendant had caused to be issued upon a judgment which he recovered in an action of unlawful entry and detainer brought by him against a tenant of complainant (no question of title is involved), which is sought to be enjoined.
Morris Cope purchased the land in controversy at a tax sale made in 1897 under a decree pronounced in the case of State v. Heiskell et al., lately pending in the chancery court at Madisonville, and was placed in possession of it after confirmation of sale and vestiture of
In the case of Boles v. Smith, 5 Sneed, 105—an action of ejectment — it is said: “It is a plain elementary principle of justice that no one ought to be concluded by a judgment, as to a matter of private right, to which he
Nor is there anything in the manner in which the complainant’s vendor obtained possession of the premises which prevents a court of equity from protecting that possession. Complainant is not a trespasser or a wrongdoer. He does not come in court with unclean hands. It is true that defendant is not bound by the decree in the case of the State v. Heiskell et als., to which he was not a party, and that, if he is the rightful owner of the property sold, he has the right to be restored to possession by proper application to the chancery court in that case for a writ of restitution, or by an action of ejectment; but this does not convict complainant of any in