39 Fla. 463 | Fla. | 1897
' I. The court very properly gave the instruction requested by the plaintiff, and refused the second instruction requested by the defendants. Plaintiff purchased these lands from the United States in 1854 or 1855, and received a certificate of purchase and full payment, but no patent was issued upon his entry until 1891. During the period intervening between the entry and the issue of the patent, the plaintiff was the beneficial or equitable owner of the lands, and the United States was the holder of the legal title. Upon the theory that the entryman in such cases is the real owner of the property from the time that he has com
II. The refusal of the fifth instruction requested by defendants, and the denial of their motion for a new trial, will be considered together. These rulings involve the questions, (A) whether, in ejectment, the defendant can avail himself of an equitable estoppel to defeat plaintiff’s right of recovery upon a legal title; (B) whether an estoppel of this character can avail under a plea of not guilty; and (C) whether the ■evidence in this case was such as to require the court to give the fifth instruction requested by defendants, and to grant a new trial upon the ground that the verdict was contrary to the law and the evidence.
(A) In several of the States where common law and equity remedies are separate and distinct, equitable estoppels can not avail a defendant in ejectment, unless, perhaps, by equitable plea, where such pleas are allowed. Sedgwick & Wait on Trial of Title to Land, sec. 849; Newell on Ejectment, p. 675, sec. 47. In others, such estoppels are available in ejectment, as well as in other common law actions. Sedgwick & Wait on Trial of Title to Land, sec. 849; Newell on Ejectment, p. 675, sec. 48; Bigelow on Estoppel, page
(B) In Coffee vs. Groover, 20 Fla. 64, text page 78, we held that a special plea of res adjudícala (an estoppel by record) in ejectment should be stricken by the -court su,a sponte, or on motion or demurrer, holding that special pleas of matter affecting the legal title,, or in estoppel only, incumbered the record and tended to embarrassment, as all such matters were admissible under the plea of not guilty. We think the same
(C) In Hollingsworth vs. Handcock, 7 Fla. 338, we held that a party who negligently and culpably stands, by and allows another to contract on the faith of an understanding of a fact which he can contradict he can not afterwards dispute that fact in an action against the person whom he had assisted in deceiving. Camp vs. Mozely, 2 Fla. 171, text 197. In Levy vs. Cox, 22 Fla. 546, we-held that when a party claiming land, for which he has not received a conveyance, voluntarily directs a deed to be made to another person, he is thereby estopped from asserting title thereto as against an innocent purchaser-thereof by regular conveyance from the sole heir of the person in whose name the deed was made. In Coogler vs. Rogers, 25 Fla. 853, 7 South. Rep. 391, we-held that an equitable estoppel would arise in all cases-where one, willfully, culpably or negligently, either by words or admissions, or by conduct, acts and acquiescence, separately or combined, caused another person to believe in the existence of a certain state of facts, by which such other person was induced to act, so as to change his own previous position injuriously. Equitable estoppel, so far as it relates to the trial of title-to land, is stated by Sedgwick & Wait on Trial of Title to Land, sec. 843, to be “a doctrine by which a party is prevented from setting up his legal title, because he has through his acts, words or silence, led another to take a position in which the assertion of the legal title would be contrary to equity and good conscience.” Terrell vs. Weymouth, 32 Fla. 255, 13 South. Rep. 429. In Dickerson vs. Colgrove, 100 U.
Yiewed in the light of these principles, it is difficult ■to conceive of a stronger case of equitable estoppel than that furnished by the plaintiff’s own sworn admissions in this case. Selling the land and delivering possession thereof to Day in 1861, though under a mere bond for title, he for thirty years thereafter, •■stood by and saw those tracing title from Day, pur>chase, claim, possess and improve the property, under
The court erred in refusing the fifth instruction re