58 N.E.2d 575 | Ill. | 1944
The final amended complaint filed herein was entitled as one "in chancery for an accounting and for partition." However, a full reading of said complaint discloses that the main relief sought is the construction of a deed executed in 1896 conveying life estates and remainders in certain real estate in Clay county, and for the quieting of title thereto. The principal defendants filed motions to strike said amended complaint and dismiss the suit upon the basis that it "shows no facts which entitle plaintiffs to partition, accounting, quieting of title or any relief prayed." The trial court sustained the motions to strike and dismissed the complaint for want of equity. Plaintiffs elected to stand upon their complaint as amended and have appealed to this court, a freehold being involved. Because of the view which we take of this case, it will not be necessary to relate in detail all the facts disclosed by the pleadings. However, some reference thereto will assist in the proper consideration hereof.
According to the complaint, the owners of the 120 acres of land in question, Noah Webster and Rebecca Webster, husband and wife, on February 17, 1896, executed and delivered a deed conveying said land to their daughter, Celestia Hall, for life. The deed then provided these conditions: "The said Celestia Hall and Edward J. Hall her husband to hold and to have during their natural life, at their death, above lands to revert to the heirs of Celestia Hall's body, if any. If no heirs of her body then living to revert equally to Effie J. Helm, H.R. Webster, and Stella May Webster, if living, or the ones of them or either one that may be living at that time. If none of them are living then to the heirs of their bodies." Celestia Hall died in 1919 at which time she left no heirs of her body but all of the remaindermen, i.e., Effie J. Helm, H.R. Webster, (who is the same person as plaintiff Harrison R. Webster) *404 and Stella May Webster, were then alive. Effie J. Helm died in April, 1923, and left her surviving as her only heir-at-law one child, Jenness, who subsequently married one Wolbert. Inasmuch as the remaindermen were brother and sisters, Harrison R. Webster and Jenness Wolbert were the only heirs of Stella May Webster, who died intestate while this suit was pending but subsequent to the death of said Edward J. Hall. Said Harrison R. Webster and Jenness Wolbert are the only plaintiffs.
The complaint further alleges that Edward J. Hall died on November 20, 1940, but that prior thereto, on February 6, 1935, he attempted to acquire all interests of the remaindermen, H.R. Webster and Stella May Webster, through a sheriff's deed executed upon a sale to satisfy a judgment against them. Following receipt of the sheriff's deed and prior to his death, said Edward J. Hall executed a quitclaim deed of his entire interest in the premises to his three nephews, William E. Hall, J. Ellis Hall and Everett E. Hall. The interest of William E. Hall was subsequently conveyed to Lola Hall who is made a party defendant together with said J. Ellis Hall and Everett E. Hall, but plaintiffs assert that said defendants in fact own none of the fee.
During the years between 1919 and 1940, several deeds were executed by various of the foregoing named parties and judgments obtained against several of them. In particular, Jenness Wolbert and her husband executed a quitclaim deed of her interest in 1938, and the following year said interest came to be owned by one Alva Carter, but these deeds are disclaimed by plaintiffs on the theory that Jenness Wolbert then had only a contingent interest which was not subject to sale. Such grantees and judgment creditors were made parties defendant. On March 25, 1942, plaintiff Harrison R. Webster executed an oil and gas lease of part of his asserted interest to one B.F. Hayes who was likewise made a party defendant. *405 The complaint finally alleges that the plaintiff Harrison R. Webster owns an undivided three-fourths interest in the premises, being one half in his own right and one fourth as an heir of Stella May Webster, and that plaintiff Jenness Wolbert owns the remaining one-fourth as the other heir of Stella May Webster, subject only to the oil and gas lease and the rights of said judgment creditors, if any; that since the death of Edward J. Hall on November 20, 1940, the defendants Lola Hall, J. Ellis Hall and Everett E. Hall have been in possession of the premises, have received the rents, issues and profits therefrom and refuse to account to the plaintiffs or surrender possession. It is not alleged that Alva Carter has been in possession or received any part of the rents and profits.
The primary contentions of plaintiffs thus may be summarized as follows: That the Webster deed of 1896 created estates in Celestia Hall and Edward J. Hall for the life of the survivor, with contingent remainders which vested in such persons as survived the last of said life tenants, — which survivors proved to be Harrison R. Webster and Stella May Webster; that by the death of the latter, after the death of Edward J. Hall, her interest descended to said Harrison R. Webster and Jenness Wolbert, who now own the entire fee; that the sheriff's deed of February 6, 1935, conveyed no title, because Harrison R. Webster and Stella May Webster then had only contingent interests which are not subject to sale under execution. The opposing theory of defendants is that the remainders vested or became a determinable fee upon the death of Celestia Hall and that Harrison R. Webster and Stella May Webster lost the interests which they then acquired when Edward J. Hall later purchased at the sheriff's sale; that the grantees under him, Lola Hall, J. Ellis Hall and Everett E. Hall, thus own the fee, or at least all except the possible interest of defendant Alva Carter. *406
After asking that the plaintiffs be adjudged to be the owners in fee simple of the premises subject only to the oil and gas lease of B.F. Hayes, and that defendants Lola Hall, J. Ellis Hall and Everett E. Hall be required to account for the rents and profits received from the premises since November 20, 1940, the prayer of plaintiffs' complaint is that commissioners be appointed to make partition or appraise the premises, and that the rights and interests of the parties in the premises or proceeds be ascertained. No specific request is made in the prayer that plaintiffs' title be quieted although such relief is asked in several paragraphs of the body of the complainant where various deeds and judgments are described.
Upon the record thus presented, we see no alternative other than to sustain the decree of the court below which dismissed the suit for want of equity. In the first place, it must be remembered that while section 31 of the Civil Practice Act abolishes the distinction between actions at law and suits in equity, it has always provided, "but this section shall not be deemed to affect in any way the substantial averments of fact necessary to state any cause of action either at law or in equity." (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1943, chap. 110, par. 155.) With that as a premise, we will now consider each possible theory of plaintiffs' final amended complaint.
Partition: By frequent previous decisions of this court, it has been made plain that a partition suit is, primarily, a proceeding to sever interests in real estate, and the determining of interests and quieting of title are only ancillary thereto. See, for example: McConnell v. Pierce,
In reaching this conclusion as to the inappropriate nature of partition herein, we are not unmindful of section 39 of the Partition Act, which provides that controverted titles may be settled and clouds removed. This court has many times pointed out that the relief therein contemplated is merely incidental to the primary relief in partition. There being no basis for equity to attach to this case as one in partition, it follows that the relief which might otherwise be incidental thereto also fails. Thus, in McConnell v. Pierce,
Accounting: The final amended complaint of plaintiffs contains no allegations whatever that the accounts between the parties, if the right thereto is ultimately established, are involved or complex or that a court of law does not offer an adequate remedy. Plaintiffs merely assert that defendants Lola Hall, J. Ellis Hall and Everett E. Hall have been in possession since November 20, 1940, and refuse to account for the rents and profits received. In the absence of more specific allegations, the motions of defendants to dismiss for want of equity were quite proper, for, as pointed out in County of Cook
v. Davis,
Quieting Title: This, of course, is a well-known field for the intervention of a court of equity. As a matter of fact, section 50 of our Chancery Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1943, chap. 22, par. 50,) specifically provides that courts of chancery may hear and determine "complaints to quiet title and to remove clouds from the title to real estate, and complaints to establish and confirm titles to real estate or of any interest therein, whether the lands in controversy are improved or occupied, or unimproved or unoccupied." However, it will be noted that, as a prerequisite to such a remedy, the land in controversy must either be in the possession of the plaintiffs, or unimproved and unoccupied. At common law and prior to the enactment of our Chancery Act, only persons in possession of the land in question were entitled to maintain suits to quiet title. The statute added a second basis for such relief, i.e., if the lands were vacant or unoccupied. Thus, this court at an early date said in the case of Hardin v. Jones,
In view of plaintiffs' own allegation that the premises in question are in the possession of defendants Lola Hall, J. Ellis Hall and Everett E. Hall, it follows that there is no ground for equitable jurisdiction on this score, particularly since the objection was raised in the trial court by motion to strike for want of equity. This presents a much different situation than existed in cases such as Stout v. Cook,
In addition to the foregoing principles, and at the same time closely akin thereto, is the well-established line of cases holding that where only legal titles are involved equity will not take jurisdiction for the purpose of construing a deed and declaring titles. Thus, in Prather v. Lewis,
The rule just referred to applies with equal force herein. The only cloud and uncertainty that exist are by reason of the language of the Webster deed of 1896 which could be fully settled by an action at law in ejectment. That is the age-old remedy to try legal titles and gain possession of real estate. An accounting of the rents and profits, if title is found to be in plaintiffs, could also readily be had under proper pleading in the same suit. While the relief asked by plaintiffs' present complaint is not entirely foreign to equity jurisdiction, the point has been duly raised by defendants at the first opportunity and, in view of established precedent and applicable statutes, it is apparent that their motions must be sustained. Certain fundamental distinctions between law and equity have long been recognized and the incidents of each, such as trial by jury, statutes of limitations, laches, etc., have an important bearing on the rights of litigants. Unless or until changed by the legislature, we have no authority to disregard the same.
The action of the trial court in dismissing the complaint for want of equity is affirmed, but without prejudice to plaintiffs' rights to maintain an appropriate action at law.
Decree affirmed. *412