Chipman v. Hastings

CROCKETT, J. — The action is ejectment, and the demanded premises are included within that portion of the “Rancho de San Antonio” which has been finally confirmed to Antonio Maria Peralta, one of the sons of Luis Peralta, deceased, to whom the rancho was originally granted. The plaintiff claims under the confirmee, Antonio Maria, and the defendant under the daughters of the original grantee, Luis Peralta. The case of Minturn v. Brower, 24 Cal. 644, was also an action of ejectment for a portion of the tract confirmed to Antonio Maria Peralta, and in that ease, as in this, the plaintiff claimed under the confirmee and the defendants under the daughters of the grantee. In each case the answers allege as matters of equitable defense that Luis Peralta died intestate, seised in fee of the land, and that his title descended to his four sons and to his four daughters and to the issue of a deceased daughter in equal portions; that the four sons, in fraud of the daughters, procured the title to the whole rancho to be confirmed to them in severalty, to the exclusion of the daughters; that in support of their alleged right to a confirmation they put in evidence before the land commission and the district court of the United States a forged and simulated will of Luis Peralta, deceased, purporting to devise the entire rancho to the four sons; that the confirmation was procured by means of these fraudulent practices, of which, it is alleged, the plaintiffs, and all those through whom they deraign title, had notice before taking their conveyances. In each case the prayer is that the plaintiff be decreed to be a trustee, holding the title derived under the confirmation in trust for the defendants to the extent of the interest acquired by them from the daughters of Peralta. There is no substantial difference between the equitable defenses set up in the two actions, and in each of them the court below sustained a demurrer to this portion of the answers. In Minturn v. Brower this court held the answer to be good, and reversed the action of the court below in sus[819]taming the demurrer. The ground of the decision was that the demurrer admitted the averments of the answer to be true, and from these averments it appeared that Luis Peralta, at the time of his death, was seised in fee of the land, having a perfect legal title thereto, which needed no confirmation by the tribunals of the United States; that having the fee, his title was protected by the treaty of cession and by the law of nations, and could not be devested by a failure to present it for confirmation; that, if he died intestate, as the answer alleged, the title descended to his heirs at law. In the present ease the answer avers that the supreme court of the United States, in adjudicating the title of Luis Peralta on appeal, adjudged that his title to the land in controversy “was a perfect legal title in fee.” The demurrer admits the truth of this allegation and that Peralta died intestate. It also admits the averments touching the simulated will and notice to the plaintiff and his grantors. There being no substantial difference between the equitable defenses set up in the two actions, the decision in Minturn v. Brower is decisive of this point in the present action. But it is suggested by counsel that the authority of Minturn v. Brower on this point has been shaken by the later case of Banks v. Moreno, 39 Cal. 238. In that case, however, the point we are now considering did not arise. The question there was, whether on the title papers of Luis Peralta, which were put in evidence at the trial, he held a perfect legal title in fee or only an inchoate, imperfect, or, as it is sometimes styled, an equitable title. We held it to be of the latter character on the title papers as then presented. But in the present case, as in Minturn v. Brower, the demurrer admits that he held a perfect legal title in fee, and in each case the plaintiff relied upon the statute of limitations as a bar to the equitable defense. We are unable to discover any substantial difference between the two cases, so far as relates to the equitable defenses; and on the authority of that case we hold that the demurrer ought to have been overruled.