75 Tenn. 300 | Tenn. | 1881
delivered the opinion of the court.
This bill is filed by a part of the devisees, and ■the heirs of others, of James Wiley, to assert a claim to a tract of land.
The ground of the present claim is, that this land was sold under a judgment against the heirs and de-visees of said James Wiley, after his death, and purchased by one Williams for upwards of $300; that before the time of redemption expired, Victoria A. Cooly, a daughter of said Wiley and one of his heirs and devisees, redeemed the land from Williams, for
It is then charged that in March, 1877, Victoria Cooly and her husband sold this land to Woolman & Co., conveying it to them by deed. This conveyance is alleged to convey no title as against complainants. The specific prayer of the bill is for a removal of the cloud from their title, and an account of injury and waste done by defendants getting a large amount of tan-bark on the land, and for general relief.
' Some other matters are charged • in the bill as to invalidity of the sale, but need not be noticed, as they are not insisted on by counsel.
Woolman & Co. answer, and show themselves innocent purchasers for full consideration paid, their answer containing all the necessary facts to give them the benefit of this equitable defense. The case is made out in their favor on this ground, and the complainants entitled to no relief against the land in their hands.
The only question left in the case is, whether, on the facts charged in the bill, and under the issues tendered by the pleadings, the complainants who appealed are entitled to have an account of their share of the $1,200 received by Cooly and wife for the land, from Woolman & Co.
We take it, if the case is made out, that Cooly and wife held the land charged with a trust in favor of their co-heirs, the other children of James Wiley, by reason of having paid off Williams’ debt — in sub
Assuming the law to be as stated, the question is, was the land in the hands of Cooly and wife charged with a trust in favor of complainants, and were they entitled to assert a claim in equity as tenants in common to the same, under the facts shown in this case?
The fair result of our decisions is, that tenants in common, especially by descent, '“are placed in a confidential relation to each other by operation of law, so that the same duties are imposed as if a joint trust had been created by contract between them, or by the act of a third party, so that ordinarily, nothing else appearing, each will be considered a trustee for the
But we do not understand this rule to go to the extent that the co tenants may not relinquish their equity, or by distinct, clear and unequivocal acts, estop themselves from asserting this equity, and this on the same principle that a man may waive or part with, or be estopped from asserting any other title he may have by law; and so it w7as held in the case of Gentry et al. v. Gentry et al., 1 Sneed, 89, where an unequivocal disclaimer of the right was recognized as sufficient to conclude a co-tenant, although in that case the answer was not held to be sufficient. The principle, however, that the right might be waived or abandoned, was clearly recognized.
Applying these principles to this case, it clearly appears from the proof, that the time of redemption of this land lacked but three days of expiring, when Mrs. Cooly paid the money to Williams; that she had repeatedly urged 'her co-tenants to join her in redeeming the land, but that they declines!, both from inabiility readily to raise the money, and from indisposition to do so at all, at the time believing the land was not worth more at least than Williams’ debt, and that it would be a bad investment. They seem
We think they are now estopped to set up the claim made in this bill, and the chancellor’s decree dismissing the bill correct. If they have been deprived of their title by the sale and conveyance to Woolman & Co., and by the obtension of the title by Mrs. Cooly, it was all done by consent and active encouragement of complainants, or the result of such encouragement. They cannot now, when they see a chance for a profit, assert and maintain a title so long yielded, to the injury of parties who had been induced to act, upon a state of things entirely different.
Affirm the decree with costs.'