77 Ind. App. 488 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1921
This is an action by appellants against appellees, seeking relief from a judgment quieting the title of appellee Drusilla Carr to certain real estate, as against appellants Rosa M. B. Hitt and William Winchester Hall and one Arza B. Hitt, from whom appellant Anna M. H. Hitt derives her title. The express averments of the complaint, which is in a single paragraph, when considered in connection with the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, disclose the following facts. On August 28, 1903, and for many years prior thereto, one Mary H. B. Hitt and appellant William Winchester Hall, both of whom were non-residents of the State of Indiana, were the owners in fact and of record, by a regular chain of conveyances from the government of the United States, of all that part of section 31 lying north of the Indian boundary line, and west of the Grand Calumet river, in township 37 north, range 7 west, in Lake county, Indiana, containing 64.50 acres more or less. Said land was a waste of sand and sloughs, incapable of producing any sort of vegetation, and had never been cultivated in any manner, but said owners had always paid the taxes thereon since acquiring the title thereto. On said August 28, 1903, the said Hitt and Hall, having discovered that certain persons, including Drusilla Carr and her two sons, had occupied a portion of said land as squatters in small buildings, commonly called “shacks,” during the fishing seasons, they commenced an action in the Lake Circuit Court against Seward Lightner and others to quiet their title to said land, and made said Drusilla Carr a party de
Appellees have cited the case of Ratliff v. Stretch, supra, as a precedent supporting their contention that the complaint in the instant case is insufficient, but we cannot accept it as controlling. True, the facts alleged in the complaint in that case bear a resemblance to the facts alleged in this case in some particulars, but -it will be observed that the principal facts on which that decision rests are not present in the instant case. We have not failed to note what the court said in that case with reference to enjoining the enforcement of judgments on account of the absence of a witness or the loss of an instrument in writing, being an unsafe practice to inaugurate. That such practice, if made a general rule, would be unwise because unsafe, we do not question, but it does not follow that a court of equity should never enjoin the enforcement of a judgment for such, reasons, and especially where such enforcement would be against good conscience, because an officer of a court of record had failed in the discharge of a duty imposed upon him by law. The crowning purpose of a court of equity is to effect justice within the limits of its power,
We have carefully considered all the contentions made by appellees, but do not consider it advisable to extend this opinion further for the purpose of treating the same at length. For the reasons stated we are clearly of the opinion that the facts alleged, as disclosed by the record before us, presents a cause which appeals so strongly to equity, that a trial ought to be had upon the merits, and the rights of the parties ought to be determined after hearing the evidence, and not upon a demurrer to the complaint. Cleveland, etc., R. Co. v. Hayes (1905), 35 Ind. App. 539, 74 N. E. 531; Brown v. Brown (1894), 139 Ind. 653, 39 N. E. 152. Judgment reversed with instructions to overrule the demurrer to the complaint, and for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.