Kirk v. Hamilton/Opinion of the Court

by by John Marshall Harlan

United States Supreme Court

102 U.S. 68

Kirk  v.  Hamilton

It appears from the first bill of exceptions that, upon the trial of the cause, the plaintiff, to maintain the issue joined, gave evidence to the jury tending to prove title in himself to the land in dispute, as well as his actual possession of the premises under that title; that he had fully discharged the indebtedness secured by the two deeds of trust executed, one to Lenox and Naylor, and the other to Clarke and Smith; that Charles Stott, on the 14th of May, 1872, reconveyed to him all that portion of the premises which, on the 22d of March, 1856, he had conveyed to Stott; that he had never made nor authorized any other conveyances than those just named. He also introduced a deed from Carrington, as the supposed trustee in the case of Moore & Co. v. Kirk, & c., at the same time, however, denying its validity, and avowing that it was introduced subject to his exceptions reserved, and to be thereafter presented, as to its sufficiency in law to prove title in the defendants or either of them. It was admitted by the court subject to those exceptions. The plaintiff further gave evidence to prove that defendants were in possession of the premises at the commencement of the action, and then rested.

The bill of exceptions then shows that defendants, to sustain their defence, and to prove title out of the plaintiff, offered to read in evidence the record of the equity suit of Moore & Co. v. Kirk, & c. Plaintiff insisted that the record of that suit was insufficient in law to maintain the issue on defendants' behalf, or to show title in them, and asked the court to inform the jury that it should not then be admitted in evidence, except subject to his exceptions as to its sufficiency in law, to be thereafter presented to the court pending the further trial of the cause. The record was so admitted. The defendants, further to maintain their defence, and to prove title in themselves, offered to introduce testimony tending to prove that, at the time of the purchase of the premises at the sale made by Carrington, trustee, in the suit of Moore & Co. v. Kirk, & c., the only improvement thereon was a two-story four-room brick house, and that, about the year 1868, the defendants erected an extensive building on the property, at a cost of some $4,000; that when they began such building, and for some time thereafter, the plaintiff Kirk resided on the adjoining premises; that during all that time he well knew of said improvements, made no objection thereto, and asserted no claim to the property, except the west three feet thereof, adjoining his ground, and which he claimed as an alley, and, even as to such portion, he subsequently informed the witness he was mistaken; and, lastly, that the plaintiff, though residing in the city of Washington ever since about the year 1865, never, to defendants' knowledge, until the commencement of this action, asserted any claim to the premises in dispute.

At that stage of the trial the plaintiff interposed and asked the court to inform the jury that the testimony thus offered, in reference to defendants putting improvements on the premises, was inadmissible in law, and that such issue ought to be found for the plaintiff. The court ruled that the testimony was admissible, to which plaintiff excepted. The defendants then gave the said testimony in evidence o the jury, who rendered a verdict against the plaintiff upon to the jury, who rendered first bill of exceptions.

The remaining bills of exceptions present, in different forms, the general question whether the sale by Carrington, as trustee, on the 19th of April, 1864, was or was not, upon the face of the record of Moore & Co. v. Kirk, & c., a mere nullity. Its validity is assailed by the plaintiff on various grounds, the most important of which seem to be: 1. That as Moore & Co. sued in their own behalf only, and not for the benefit of themselves and other creditors, the jurisdiction and power of the court was exhausted by the first sale (of lot No. 78), which raised an amount largely in excess of the claims for which Moore & Co. sued. 2. That the utmost which the court, upon the pleadings, could do, was to distribute such excess among the other creditors of Kirk who should appear, in proper form, and establish their claims. 3. That the court was entirely without jurisdiction to make a second order of sale, and did not assume to exercise any such power. 4. That the second sale by Carrington, having been made without any previous order or direction of the court, its confirmation, and the deed subsequently made to Hamilton, were absolutely null and void.

In the view we take of the case, it is unnecessary to pass upon these several objections. If it be assumed that the record of the suit of Moore & Co. v. Kirk, & c., was, of itself, insufficient in law to divest Kirk of title to the premises in dispute, or to invest Hamilton with title, the question still remains, whether the facts disclosed by the first bill of exceptions do not constitute a defence to the present action.

After the confirmation of the sale of April 19, 1864, before any deed had been made, and while the cause was upon reference for a statement, as well of the trustee's accounts as for distribution of the fund realized by the sales, Kirk, it seems, appeared before the auditor, by an attorney, and made objection to the allowance of the simple-contract debts which had been proven against him in his absence. So far as the record discloses, no other objection to the proceedings was interposed by him. Undoubtedly he then knew, he must be conclusively presumed to have known, after he appeared before the auditor, all that had taken place in that suit during his absence from the District, including the sale of the premises in dispute, which took place only a few months prior to his appearance before the auditor. If that sale was a nullity, the court, upon application by Kirk, after his appearance before the auditor, could have disregarded all that had been done subsequently to the first sale, discharged Hamilton's bond, returned the money he had paid, and, in addition, placed Kirk in the actual possession of the property. No such application was made. No such claim was asserted. No effort was made by him to prevent the execution of a deed to the purchaser at the second sale. So far as the record shows, he seemed to have acquiesced in what had been done in his absence. In 1868, three years after his return to the city, and two years after Hamilton had secured a deed in pursuance of his purchase, he became aware that Hamilton was in actual possession of the premises, claiming and improving them as his property. He personally knew of Hamilton's expenditures of money in their improvement, and remained silent as to any claim of his own. Indeed, his assertion while the improvements were being made, of claim to only three feet of ground next to the adjoining lot upon which he resided, was, in effect, a disclaimer that he had, or would assert, a claim to the remainder of the lots 7 and 9 which Hamilton had purchased at the sale in April, 1864. And his subsequent declaration that he was in error in claiming even that three feet of ground only added force to his former disclaimer of title in the premises. Hamilton was in possession under an apparent title acquired, as we must assume from the record, in entire good faith, by what he supposed to be a valid judicial sale, under the sanction of a court of general jurisdiction.

The only serious question upon this branch of the case is whether, consistently with the authorities, the defence is available to Hamilton in this action of ejectment to recover the possession of the property. We are of opinion that the present case comes within the reasons upon which rest the established exceptions to the general rule that title to land cannot be extinguished or transferred by acts in pais or by oral declarations. 'What I induce my neighbor to regard as true is the truth as between us, if he has been misled by my asseveration,' became a settled rule of property at a very early period in courts of equity. The same principle is thus stated by Chancellor Kent in Wendell v. Van Rensselaer, 1 Johns. (N. Y.) Ch. 344: 'There is no principle better established, in this court, nor one founded on more solid considerations of equity and public utility, than that which declares, that if one man, knowingly, though he does it passively, by looking on, suffers another to purchase and expend money on land, under an erroneous opinion of title, without making known his own claim, shall not afterwards be permitted to exercise his legal right against such person. It would be an act of fraud and injustice, and his conscience is bound by this equitable estoppel.' p.354.

While this doctrine originated in courts of equity, it has been applied in cases arising in courts of law.

In The King v. The Inhabitants of Butterton (6 Durnf. & E. 554), Mr. Justice Lawrence said: 'I remember a case some years ago in which Lord Mansfield would not suffer a man to recover, even in ejectment, where he had stood by and seen the defendant build on his land.'

In 2 Smith, Lead. Cas., pp. 730-740 (7th Am. ed., with notes by Hare and Wallace), the authorities are carefully examined. It is there said that there has been an increasing disposition to apply the doctrine of equitable estoppel in courts of law.

Again (pp. 733, 734): 'The question presented in these and other cases, which involve the operation of equitable estoppels on real estate, is both difficult and important. It is undoubtedly true that the title to land cannot be bound by an oral agreement, or passed by matter in pais, without an apparent violation of those provisions of the Statute of Frauds which require a writing when the realty is involved. But it is equally well settled that equity will not allow the statute to be used as a means of effecting the fraud which it was designed to prevent, and will withdraw every case not within its spirit from the rigor of its letter, if it be possible to do so without violating the general policy of the act, and giving rise to the uncertainty which it was meant to obviate. It is well established that an estate in land may be virtually transferred from one man to another without a writing, by a verbal sale accompanied by actual possession, or by the failure of the owner to give notice of his title to the purchaser under circumstances where the omission operates as a fraud; and although the title does not pass under these circumstances, a conveyance will be decreed by a court of equity. It would, therefore, seem to late to contend that the title to real estate cannot be passed by matter in pais, without disregarding the Statute of Frauds; and the only room for dispute is as to the forum in which relief must be sought. The remedy in such cases lay originally in an application to chancery, and no redress could be had [except] in a merely legal tribunal, except under rare and exceptional circumstances. But the common law has been enlarged and enriched under the principles and maxims of equity, which are constantly applied at the present day in this country, and even in England, for the relief of grantees, the protection of mortgagors, and the benefit of purchasers, by a wise adaptation of ancient forms to the more liberal spirit of modern times. The doctrine of equitable estoppel is, as its name indicates, chiefly, if not wholly, derived from courts of equity, and as these courts apply it to any species of property, there would seem no reason why its application should be restricted in courts of law. Protection against fraud is equally necessary, whatever may be the nature of the interest at stake; and there is nothing in the nature of real estate to exclude those wise and salutary principles, which are now adopted without scruple in both jurisdictions, in the case of personalty. And whatever may be the wisdom of the change, through which the law has encroached on the jurisdiction of chancery, it has now gone too far to be confined within any limits short of the whole field of jurisprudence. This view is maintained by the main current of decisions.'

This question in a different form was examined in Dickerson v. Colgrove, 100 U.S. 578. That was an action of ejectment, and the defence, based upon equitable estoppel, was adjudged to be sufficient. We there held that the action involved both the right of possession and the right of property, and that as the facts developed showed that the plaintiff was not in equity and conscience entitled to disturb the possession of the defendants, there was no reason why the latter might not, under the circumstances disclosed, rely upon the doctrine of equitable estoppel to protect their possession.

Applying these principles to the case in hand, it is clear, upon the facts recited in the first bill of exceptions, and which the jury found to have been established, that the plaintiff is estopped from disturbing the possession of the defendants. He knew, as we have seen, that the defendants claimed the property under a sale made in an equity suit to which he was an original party. The sale may have been a nullity, and it may be that he could have repudiated it as a valid transfer of his right of property. Instead of pursuing that course, he, with a knowledge of all the facts, appeared before the anditor and disputed the right of certain creditors to be paid out of the fund which had been raised by the sale of his property. He forbore to raise any question whatever as to the validity of the sale, and by his conduct indicated his purpose not to make any issue in reference to the proceedings in the equity suit. Knowing that the defendants' claim to the premises rested upon that sale, he remained silent while the latter expended large sums in their improvement, and in effect, disclaimed title in himself. He was silent when good faith required him to put the purchaser on guard. He should not now be heard to say that that is not true which his conduct unmistakably declared was true and upon the faith of which others acted.

The evidence upon this point was properly admitted, and operated to defeat the action independently of the question whether the sale by Carrington, the trustee, and its confirmation by the court, was, itself, a valid, binding transfer of the title to the purchaser.

What has been said renders it unnecessary to consider the questions of law presented in the remaining bills of exceptions.

Judgment affirmed.

Notes