51 S.E.2d 687 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1949
"A judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction shall be conclusive between the same parties and their privies as to all matters put in issue, or which under the rules of law might have been put in issue in the cause wherein the judgment was rendered, until such judgment shall be reversed or set aside." Code, § 110-501. Accordingly, where a petition alleges facts as true which are contradicted by a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction between the same parties and their privies as to the same subject-matter, such facts can not be held to be true but the court is bound to take judicial notice of the judgment, which is the law of the case and allegations in the petition contradicting the same will not prevent the sustaining of a demurrer.
The petition alleges that in 1924 and in 1929, the defendants without lawful authority, seized certain tracts of land of Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford, and that since said illegal seizure said defendants have collected the sum of $75,000, or other large sums on the rents and profits from this property and for which plaintiff sues.
The petition alleges that Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford, wife of W. C. Lankford, acquired title to said property by virtue of a bond for title executed on January 3, 1920, by J. S. Lott to her by which said Lott obligated himself to convey to Mrs. Lankford said property, and later "title papers, as called for in said bond for title, were perfected in said Mrs. Lankford, from J. S. Lott."
The petition alleges that in 1911 W. C. Lankford borrowed $15,000 from B. H. Tanner and put up the land referred to in this action and other lands as security; that in August 1918 this loan deed and the notes it secured were assigned to the defendant Mrs. Rilza T. Holton, daughter of the original payee; and that in January 1915 W. C. Lankford executed a deed to J. S. Lott conveying the lands referred to in this action, said Lott being the father of Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford and her predecessor in title.
The petition alleges that in 1923 suit was brought against W. C. Lankford by the defendant Mrs. Rilza T. Holton, on the notes secured by the loan deed referred to hereinbefore; that at this time an agreement in writing was entered into between the defendant, Mrs. Rilza T. Holton and Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford, which in substance obligated Mrs. Holton under certain circumstances in connection with the contemplated sheriff's sale of the lands in question growing out of the execution against W. C. Lankford and conditioned upon Mrs. Holton acquiring title to the property as the result of said sale, to deliver to Mrs. Lankford an option to purchase the property for the sum of $15,000 payable at $100 per month from January 1924 for 7 years and the balance to be paid then; that said option to purchase was executed by the parties and delivered to Mrs. Lankford, but that in 1924 while Mrs. Lankford was complying with the terms and conditions of the option, she offered Mrs. Holton a $100 payment *634 which was refused and thereafter the defendants seized the property in the manner referred to hereinbefore.
The petition also alleges that in 1928 the defendant Mrs. Rilza T. Holton filed a petition to register said property in the Superior Court of Coffee County under the provisions of the Land Registration Act of 1917. In connection with this action it is alleged in substance that although its ultimate result was the registration of the title to the property in question in the defendant Rilza T. Holton under direction of the Supreme Court inLankford et al. v. Holton et al.,
The exception is to the judgment of the trial court sustaining a general demurrer to the petition.
In order for the plaintiff in the instant case to be entitled to recover the rents and profits as money had and received which from the basis of his action, as assignee of Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford, it must appear from the petition that she, in the absence of assignment thereof, was entitled to said rents and profits. Of course he got no better title to the rents and profits than Mrs. Lankford had. In Lankford v. Holton,
"Where an option contract is breached by the optionor, the optionee can not stand silently by for a long number of years, see the optionor take possession, assert and bear the burdens of ownership, make substantial improvements, and then, after having acquiesced in the breach, successfully claim rights under an option contract that had been openly abandoned by the parties thereto. In her answer filed in 1928 Mrs. Lankford merely denied the right of Mrs. Holton to register title, and by a series of amendments beginning in 1937 she claimed the right to have title to 3 1/2 tracts registered in her name by reason of prescription and on the plea that Mrs. Holton's chain of title was infected with usury. If Mrs. Lankford relied for registration on legal title to 3 1/2 tracts, that contention has been settled adversely to her by the foregoing rulings upon her main bill of exceptions in this case, 14333. If she relied on equitable title or interest by reason of the settlement agreement and a claimed breach of the option contract, her claim is barred by acquiescence in the breach and by abandonment of any claim thereunder and by laches.
"The evidence in this case does not support the examiner's finding of equitable title to 3 1/2 tracts in Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford, and the exceptions of law to this finding should have been sustained. The court erred in approving this finding, and in entering decree to this effect. Direction is given, that, on return of the remittiturs in this case to the court below, an order be entered sustaining the exceptions to the examiner's findings of law numbered 12 and 13, and that the court strike from the decree all provisions which grant an equitable title to Mattie L. *636 Lankford and all provisions making legal title subject to divestment upon performance of any obligation by Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford, referred to in the decrees." Therefore the fact that Mrs. Lankford had no interest in the lands in question at the time of the assignment of rents and profits thereof to the plaintiff herein had irrevocably been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction.
Lankford v. Holton,
In holding that the trial court did not err in sustaining a general demurrer to the petition the Supreme Court held as follows: "Where a suit for land describes certain realty, alleges title thereto, and also claims rents for which judgment is prayed, and *637 where in said petition the right to title and rents is predicated upon a previous decision of this court between the same parties and involving the title to the same land, which decision is attacked as being erroneous, the petition was subject to general demurrer." It follows that at the time of this decision of the Supreme Court, July 15, 1948, or approximately 6 weeks before her assignment to the plaintiff here, it was adjudicated that Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford had no interest in the rents and profits from the lands in question. Since she had no such interest her assignment conveyed nothing to the plaintiff here, and he, the same as his assignor, has no cause of action for the rents and profits forming the basis of his suit.
Although the petition in the instant case alleges certain conclusions of law tending to show the lack of conclusiveness of the previous judgments between the parties and their privies as to the subject-matter in the instant case, such conclusions are contradicted by the judgments themselves. Only facts are admitted by demurrer, and not legal conclusions drawn therefrom by the pleader. See Terre Haute Nat. Bank v. Horne-Andrews CommissionCo.,
Where the petition alleges facts as true which are contradicted by a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction between the same parties and their privies as to the same subject-matter, such facts can not be held to be true. The court is bound to take judicial notice of the judgment which is the law of the case, and allegations in the petition contradicting the same will not prevent the sustaining of a demurrer. See Petty
v. Atlanta,
As heretofore pointed out the allegations in the instant case *638
show unmistakably that the suit here is for the identical funds sued for by plaintiff's privy and assignor, Mrs. Mattie L. Lankford in Lankford v. Holton,
Judgment affirmed. MacIntyre, P. J., and Gardner, J.,concur.