124 Va. 579 | Va. | 1919
delivered the opinion of the court.
This suit in equity was brought by Charles H. Goodman against John A. Goodman, alleging that the complainant, as one of the heirs of Agnes Doyle, who married Benjamin Goodman, inherited an undivided fourth interest in the land described in the bill; that complainant’s nephew, John A Goodman, is the. owner by inheritance and purchase of the other three-fourths undivided interest therein, and praying for a partition.
The defendant filed an answer to the bill, which, so far as material here, is as follows: “The defendant states that he is the owner in fee, and is now in possession, of a tract of land lying in Henry magisterial district, Hanover county, Virginia, which is bounded on the north by the lands of W. Calvin Martin, east by the lands of L. J. Boze and Cornelius Mantlo, south by the lands of Peter A. Peace, and west by the lands of Robert L. Goodman and John Rosbach.” (Same description as in the bill.) “And if this is the tract of land that the plaintiff claims ‘an undivided one-fourth interest in,” this defendant positively denies that the plaintiff has any right, title, interest or estate therein. And the defendant denies that the plaintiff is entitled to any portion of said land. And defendant denies each and every other allegation in said bill contained which has not been hereinbefore specially mentioned.”
To this answer the complainant replied generally, and at a subsequent day the circuit court entered the decree from which this appeal was granted, and which, so far as it need be here set out, is as follows: “This cause came on again this
The sole question presented for our decision is: Did the court err in dismissing the cause, merely upon the pleadings for want of jurisdiction, instead of awaiting a further development of the facts as to the claims of title on the part of the complainant and defendant, respectively? We have no difficulty in answering this question in the affirmative.
The instant case, so far as it has proceeded, is not within the influence of the decision of this court in Litz v. Rowe, supra, and in Bailey v. Johnson, supra, cited and relied upon by counsel for defendant. The essence of the decision in those cases is summed up in the following language from the opinion in the Bailey Case: “An independent, hostile claim, going to the whole property involved, and denying in loto and ab initio the title of the parties claiming joint ownership of the land, cannot be set up and adjudicated in a partition suit brought by the latter” (that is to say, in a partition suit brought by the joint owners, or some of them). In the Litz Case and in the Bailey Case, an outside party, who had never at any time had any community of interest with any of the parties to a partition suit which had been properly brought, sought to intervene as actors in the partition suit under a claim of title distinct from and hostile to that under which the parties to the partition suits were claiming, and sought to have the court adjudicate therein the questions of title and boundary existing between such outside independent claimant and the parties claiming jointly under a different title. In other words, the adverse
The decree complained of will be reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings to be had therein not in conflict with the views herein expressed.
Reversed.