22 So. 2d 896 | Ala. | 1945
This suit, in essence, seeks to revest title in the estate of A. W. Woodham, deceased, and out of J. W. Griffin to certain lots in Andalusia, Alabama. The original bill, filed in 1938, was by George H. Proctor, as administrator de bonis non of the estate of A. W. Woodham, deceased, against Mrs. A. W. Woodham, J. W. Griffin, Mrs. Mary W. Barley and P. D. Wright, as respondents, seeking to quiet title to the property. After several amendments a substituted bill was filed in 1944, in which Lillie Mae Woodham Shanks, as the only heir of Woodham, was added as a party complainant.
In the original bill Proctor, administrator, the sole complainant, averred that he, as the personal representative of decedent, was the owner and in peaceable possession of the described lands. In the substituted bill it was averred that both complainants were in the peaceable possession of the property in controversy and that complainant Proctor claimed to hold possession of the property as personal representative of decedent Woodham and that complainant Lillie Mae Woodham Shanks claimed the legal title to the property as decedent's heir.
The respondents, Griffin and Wright, interposed as a defense to the claim of the administrator a plea of res judicata, asserting that the issue now presented had been previously adjudicated between the parties in the case now reported of Barley v. Wright,
For a correct understanding of this case, it is necessary to consider the previous case of Barley v. Wright, supra, where the property now in suit was also involved.
The former case (
In the original bill in that case (
To this answer and cross-bill Wright and Griffin duly replied, denying the allegations of fraud and the mental impairment of Woodham and among other things alleged that at the time of the transaction, so far as they knew, Woodham was in complete possession of his mental faculties and "was fully informed as to all matters and facts relating to the property in question and with full knowledge of these facts voluntarily consummated the same."
It also appears that during the progress of the proceedings and before final decree Woodham died and an administrator ad litem was appointed by the court to represent his estate, and the cause revived.
Upon a hearing on the merits, the trial court in that case rendered a final decree denying all relief to complainant Barley and to the cross-complainants, Woodham and wife, and, upon appeal to this court by the complainant Barley, that decree was affirmed (
The plea of res judicata sets forth, in extenso, the foregoing facts and pleads in bar of the present suit the final decree in this first case. The primary question now for consideration is whether or not this former proceeding, ending in the decree aforesaid, is a bar to the present claim to the property by Proctor as administrator de bonis non of Woodham's estate because of Woodham's alleged unsoundness of mind when he executed the deed to Barley.
The pertinent rule which we have adopted as axiomatic is thus stated:
"When * * * there is no question as to the jurisdiction of the court, or as to the identity of parties, the inquiry, whether the subject-matter of the controversy has been drawn in question, and is concluded by a former adjudication, is determined, when it is ascertained that the matters of the two suits are the same, and the issues in the former suit were broad enough to have comprehended all that is involved in the issues in the second suit. The inquiry is not, what the parties actually litigated, but what they might and ought to have litigated in the former suit. * * *" Tankersly v. Pettis,
Reaffirming this principle, in the recent case of Savage v. Savage,
"The rule recognized in our jurisdiction is that, where the issues were broad enough to comprehend all that was involved in the issues of the second suit, the test is not what the parties actually litigated, but what they might or (and) ought to have litigated."
The following cases are also in point: Glasser v. Meyrovitz,
When the plea of res judicata is tested by the stated principle, it becomes manifest that it was sufficient as a bar to the instant proceeding by Proctor, administrator aforesaid, and the trial court correctly so ruled. *142
"The doctrine of res judicata has been declared to be a branch of and grounded in the law of estoppel" (30 Am.Jur. 912, § 167) and the complainant Proctor, as Woodham's said representative, is clearly estopped to maintain the suit.
The validity of the title to the lots now in controversy was necessarily involved in the former suit of Barley v. Wright,
True, Woodham's mental incapacity to execute title to Barley was not raised in that suit, but this issue was necessarily tendered by the pleadings and could, and should, have been litigated and there fully settled. The result of that case was to preclude all who were parties to that cause from subsequently contesting the validity of the hotel transaction, including the validity of the title of Wright and Griffin (J. W. Griffin's predecessors in title) to these lots. The estate of decedent Woodham was there represented by the administrator ad litem and, a fortiori, the present representative of the estate cannot relitigate the issue.
The suits were not identical, but, as respects the present property, the subject matter of the two was the same, i.e., the validity of the title of these lots as vested in Wright and Griffin. "It is not the recovery but the matter upon which the recovery proceeds which creates the estoppel." 30 Am.Jur. 912, § 165.
The averments in the Woodhams' cross-bill of their execution of the deed to Barley necessarily implied a valid conveyance and in this respect may be taken as a declaration by them of the validity of such deed, after final decree estopping them if both had lived, or after Woodham's death and revival of the cause in the name of his administrator de bonis non his personal representative, from now denying it. Wilkinson v. Lehman-Durr Co.,
If Woodham or his wife had been non compos mentis when the deed was executed they, and after Woodham's death his administrator ad litem, could and should have denied its validity in that suit, rendering this a litigable issue to be concluded by a decision of the court in that case. Having failed to do so, the personal representative, Proctor, is now estopped, as would have been Woodham had he lived, to interpose such a defense. Of such import is the holding in Wilkinson v. Lehman-Durr Co., supra, from which we quote the following pertinent observation:
"If the respondents in the bill (in the former case) had denied the validity of the deed, it would then have been a litigated issue, evidence thereon would have been admissible, and the court would have been called upon to make a decision expressly upon that issue. While the admissions in the answers rendered evidence to establish the fact that the deed was valid unnecessary, yet they did not affect the validity of the deed as an issue made by the bill, except to place it beyond the necessity of proof to support it. It remained an issue comprehended and involved in the decree of the court, notwithstanding it is not specially mentioned therein."
The trial court was therefore correct in sustaining the plea of res judicata, barring complainant Proctor, as administrator de bonis non of Woodham's estate, from maintaining the bill.
In so far, of course, as concerned the interests of Woodham's heirs in his *143
real estate, they were unaffected by the litigation because they were not made parties by revival upon his death. Griffin v. Proctor,
The ruling in abating the suit as to the sole heir, Mrs. Shanks, who was brought in by amendment six years after the filing of the original bill by the administrator, Proctor, was also without error.
Under the statute, to sustain a bill to quiet title, an essential element is that the complainant be in the actual or constructive possession of the property. Code 1940, Title 7, § 1109.
And, though one having a legal estate in fee in land has the constructive possession required to maintain such a suit, this is not the case when actual possession is in another, not in relation of privity with him. Wood Lumber Co. v. Williams,
The pleadings in the instant case present this latter status as to the two parties complainants. The heir and personal representative of a decedent "have no interest in common" in the land (Wilson v. Kirkland,
Proctor, as administrator de bonis non, claimed in the original bill to be the owner, and in possession of the land, and having been eliminated by the plea of res judicata, the heir (Shanks) could not be substituted to carry on the proceedings. This would work an entire change of parties complainant. McKay v. Broad,
It results that the plea in abatement was also well taken.
From these considerations it follows that the Writ of Mandamus is denied.
It is deemed proper to add that by giving consideration to the merits of the petition for mandamus this court does not commit itself to the proposition that a party may employ this remedy to invoke a review of the ruling of the trial court in such cases. We have considered the merits of the petition in deference to the request of counsel for both parties that we do so, neither party having challenged this method of review.
It is pointed out that after the statute was amended taking away the right of appeal from a decree sustaining or overruling the sufficiency of a plea in equity (Code 1940, Title 7, § 755), the Supreme Court has, in certain cases, permitted a limited review by mandamus in respect to interlocutory orders and decrees in equity not appealable and which are injurious to the complaining party, when a review of them on appeal from a final decree will not afford adequate relief. Rowe v. Bonneau-Jeter Hdw. Co.,
The case is also to be distinguished from the recent case of Ex parte Weissinger,
Writ denied.
GARDNER, C. J., and BROWN and LIVINGSTON, JJ., concur.