47 W. Va. 664 | W. Va. | 1900
Rose E. Miller filed a bill in equity in the circuit court of Summers County against M. H. Morrison and others, stating that Nancy Hinton had sold and conveyed to Morrison a tract of land for one thousand eight hundred dollars, of which seven hundred dollars was paid cash and three hundred dollars was to be paid September 1, 1893, and eight hundred dollars to be paid April 5, 1894, for which deferred payments a lien was reserved; that Morrison executed two notes to Hinton for the deferred payments; that Hinton transferred to John Hinton two hundred and twenty-five dollars of the unpaid purchase money, and that Morrison, by agreement of parties, executed his note for that two hundred and twenty-five dollars, payable to John Hinton, and that John Hinton had assigned said note to James H. Miller, and that he had transferred it to Rose E. Miller; that said note was a lien as part of the purchase money under said deed, and the bill prayed a sale thereof. The bill does not say who owned the balance of the purchase money, except from the inference that it yet belonged to Nancy Hinton. Morrison filed an answer, ■stating that he paid off the three hundred dollars installment, and that by request of Nancy Hinton he had taken up the eight hundred dollar note, which was a negotiable
There is a plain want of necessary parties to the cause. The bill did not make Silas Hinton, John D. Hinton, Mary A. Helms, or E. E. Helms, parties, the owners of notes executed for purchase money, and vitally interested in the case. When the answer came in, showing their interest, as such owners, in the case, the plaintiff should have' made them parties at once by amended bill: they claiming to be entitled to participate in the lien for purchase money for the notes executed by Morrison to them. This is not. a judgment.creditors’ bill to convene judgment liens under-
Next as to Nancy Hinton. Morrison’s answer is the only pleading contesting her right to purchase money, or asking decree, against her for overpayment. As to her, that answer is to be treated as containing new matter calling for affirmative relief, and she was entitled to be served with process to answer the same, and to be made a formal party •thereto, as it prayed relief against her. She was just as much entitled to process as is a defendant to an original or cross bill. Martin v. Kester, 46 W. Va. 438, (33 S. E. 238); Grobe v. Roup, 46 W. Va. 488,(33 S. E. 261); Goff v. Price, 42 W. Va. 384, (26 S. E. 287). I consider, under these authorities, the decree against Nancy Hinton void. It is al
Are Fox and Roles necessary parties? They, claiiñ parts of the land sold by Nancy Hinton to Morrison by title distinct from and hostile to the title sold by Hinton to Morrison. Under Heavner v. Morgan, 30 W. Va. 335, (4 S. E. 406), they were necessary parties, and the plaintiff should have brought them in by amended bill. But the second point in that case has been regarded bjr the legal profession, so far as'I have heard, as unsound in law, and is surely against standard authority. A suit to enforce purchase money is one of specific performance, one to enforce a contract between parties or their privies. A stranger claiming adversely to the rights of all the parties to that contract by distinct and hostile right has no privity or connection with it, or with rights under it, and has no right to a voice in its enforcement. Rights under that contract are confined to the parties to it and their privies. Barton’s Ch. Prac. (volume 1, p. 227) says: “The general rule in all suits for specific performance is that none but parties to the contract are necessary parties to the suit. Therefore strangers claiming under an adverse title need not be brought in, although one claiming by an antecedent agreement is a proper party.” Barton cites Dan-iell, Ch. Prac., which cites, among the cases to sustain this obvious principle, the case of Tasker v. Small, 3 Mylne & C. 63, in which Lord Chancellor Cottenham laid down the fundamental rule as follows:- “It is not disputed that generally to a bill for specific performance of a contract of sale the parties of the contract only are the proper parties, and, when the ground of the jurisdiction of courts of equity in suits of that kind is considered, it could not properly be otherwise. The court assumes jurisdiction in such cases because a court of law, giving damages only for the
As necessary parties are not before the Court, we do not and cannot decide the merits of this case, but simply reverse the decree, and remand the cause for further proceedings in accordance with the principles above stated.
Reversed.