Hilton v. Young

Hayne, C. This is an action to quiet title. One Vanderhoof had a contract with the Central Pacific Railroad Company for the purchase of certain land. He paid twenty per cent of the price, and the interest on the balance for one year. While the legal title remained in the company, “for a valuable consideration, he granted and conveyed in fee-simple to the defendant, Mary M. Young, a part of said lands, the same being the premises in dispute in this action.” This deed transferred to the defendant the right of Vanderhoof to a conveyance from the company of the tract in controversy, and to that extent operated as an assignment of the contract. Shortly [197]after making this deed Vanderhoof died, and his estate being insolvent, “all the right, title, and interest of said estate in and to said lands mentioned in said contract” was sold, under the order of the Probate Court, to the plaintiff Hilton. This sale did not transfer to Hilton any sort of interest in or right to the premises in controversy, for Vanderhoof had previously parted with all his right as to that portion of the land, and the probate sale only purported to be of the right, title, and interest which the estate had. In this condition of affairs, Hilton and his co-plaintiff went to the .railroad company, and paying the balance of the purchase-money, obtained a deed of all the land covered by the contract, including the defendant’s tract. They did this with full knowledge and notice of the rights of the defendant. As a matter of course, so far as the tract in dispute is concerned, they took only the legal title, with a trust in favor of the defendant, and their claim to the beneficial ownership of that tract is as destitute of foundation in law as it is in conscience.

The court below denied the plaintiffs’ application for relief, and upon the cross-complaint of defendant decreed that they had not “any right, title, or interest in or to said tract of land,” and that the title of the defendant be quieted as against the plaintiffs and those claiming under them. This was going further than the facts found warranted. The legal title was in the plaintiffs. It could not have passed to the defendant as an after-acquired title; for neither the defendant’s grantor, nor his estate, ever-acquired the title. The legal title being in the plaintiffs, they could not be said not to have “any right, title, or interest.” Upon the facts found, all that could properly have been done was to have decreed that the plaintiffs convey to the defendant. As a condition of this relief, the defendant should be required to do equity, and we think it is equity that she should pay a ratable proportion of what the plaintiffs paid to get the title.