Cooper v. Buxton

OLNEY, J.

This is an appeal by the plaintiffs from a judgment rendered against them upon demurrer to their complaint. The complaint is somewhat long, but the facts shown by it material for a decision of the case may be rather briefly stated.

One Buxton died possessed of certain real estate. The defendant is his surviving wife and the plaintiffs are his children by a former marriage. Not very long before his death he had caused his real estate to be registered under the “Land Title Law,” or Torrens Act. (Stats. 1915, p. 1932, Deering’s Gen. Laws, Act 1049.) His wife, the defendant, joined him in the application. The application alleged the property to be community property, the court in the registration proceedings found it was community property, and it was registered as such. By Buxton’s will the real estate, or his disposable interest in it, was devised to the plaintiffs. If it were community property, only one-half was subject to his testamentary disposition, and the defend

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ant, as the surviving spouse, would take the other half. On the other hand, if it were separate property, it was all subject to testamentary disposition and passed to the plaintiffs by the will. The complaint alleges that the property was in fact separate property, so that it passed to them, but that the defendant, in reliance upon the registration decree, claims one-half of it as community property.

We need hardly say that by the terms of the Torrens Act—whose validity and operation in this respect are not questioned.—the registration decree, as long as it stands, is a conclusive adjudication

in rem

that the property was community property. To meet this situation, the complaint seeks to have the decree set aside on the ground of mistake, alleging that the allegations of the application for registration to the effect that the lands were community property were made through mistake, inadvertence, and ignorance of the legal consequences on the part both of Buxton and his wife, and that, induced by these allegations, the court made the decree in question. The vital point in the case then is, May the registration decree be set aside upon the facts alleged f

It is exceedingly doubtful if the allegations as to mistake are sufficient to make out a case for setting aside a judgment.