In an action of ejectment in which the plaintiff relied upon a
line of conveyances not going back to the original source of title
coupled with possession on the part of a grantor,
held, on
a discussion of the evidence, that the deeds sufficiently
identified the land and that the plaintiff was entitled to go to
the jury on the question of possession.
A deed by the trustee of a mortgage reciting a foreclosure
decree is not limited in its operation to the authority conferred
by the decree, but passes the title of the trustee to the land
which it purports to convey.
Page 199 U. S. 248
A reference in a declaration to tax sales of the land demanded
will not be construed to import that there is a title outstanding
in third persons, as against the allegation that the plaintiff was
lawfully seized of the premises, no evidence having been taken on
the subject at the trial. A conveyance of land in the District of
Columbia made by a disseisee is valid.
The title of a railroad company, as against a disseisor, to land
conveyed to the railroad by an earlier company authorized to extend
into the District of Columbia is not affected by the question
whether the grantee also had been authorized to go there.
The facts are stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action of ejectment in which the defendant in error,
the original plaintiff, recovered judgment for the land in suit in
the Supreme Court of the District. The judgment was affirmed by the
Court of Appeals, 23 App.D.C. 587, and the case was brought
here.
There was a motion to dismiss upon the ground that it
affirmatively appears from the record that the matter in dispute,
exclusive of costs, does not exceed the sum of $5,000. But the
reasonable inference from the record is the other way,
Harris
v. Barber, 129 U. S. 366, and
affidavits are submitted which sustain the inference which we
should draw.
Red River Cattle Co. v. Needham, 137 U.
S. 632.
At the trial, the defendant presented no evidence, but asked the
judge to direct a verdict in his favor, relying on somewhat
technical criticisms of the plaintiff's case and saving its rights
by exceptions. We shall state such facts as are material.
The declaration contains nine counts, for nine parcels of land,
which the plaintiff (defendant in error) contends were
Page 199 U. S. 249
formerly part of the roadbed of the Southern Maryland Railroad
Company, and now are part of its own. The plaintiff sought to prove
its title by putting in deeds of each of these parcels made to the
last-named company in 1884, and evidence of possession on the part
of the same, together with subsequent deeds finally conveying the
land to the plaintiff. Of course, this would be sufficient if made
out. It is argued that the description in the first deeds is too
vague to identify the land, and the argument is fortified by the
testimony of a surveyor that "the deed is not definite enough to
place it on the ground." But the deed was accompanied by plats to
which they referred, and the same surveyor testified that "the
plats are as near identical [with the witness' survey of the locus]
as it is possible to make them," and more to the same effect. It is
evident that the former words refer to the descriptive language of
the deeds alone, and that, when the descriptions are taken, as they
should be, in connection with the plats, there is no difficulty
with the deeds.
Next, it is said that there was no evidence of possession on the
part of the Southern Maryland Railroad. But the same surveyor
testified that he knew the old Southern Maryland Railroad tracks
out there, and had known them for thirteen years, and another
surveyor testified that he was employed by that company in laying
out its roadbed in 1886, that he remembered the line of this right
of way, that the right of way of the Southern Maryland was
sixty-six feet wide, and that the Chesapeake Beach Railway uses the
right of way of the old Southern Maryland Railroad clear to the
District of Columbia line. Without going into further detail or
answering every minute criticism, we are of opinion that the judge
was right in leaving the question to the jury, and that the jury
were warranted in finding as they did. It is said that it must
appear that the possession, if any, of the Maryland company was not
abandoned.
Sabariego v. Maverick, 124 U.
S. 261. But, in a case like the present, at least, where
the tracks of the railroad were on the land and when the plaintiff
exhibits a
Page 199 U. S. 250
series of deeds purporting to convey the property, the last one
to itself, it is to be presumed that possession followed the title
until the dispossession by the defendant took place.
Lazarus v.
Phelps, 156 U. S. 202,
156 U. S.
204-205.
See Bradshaw v. Ashley, 180 U. S.
59,
180 U. S. 62,
180 U. S. 66.
The defendant did not hold for such a length of time, free from
dispute, that abandonment to it by the plaintiff could be inferred.
The suit was begun on January 13, 1902, and the possession of the
defendant is not carried back beyond 1898, if so far.
The subsequent steps in the plaintiff's title are as follows: a
decree of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia foreclosing
a mortgage recited to have been made by the Southern Maryland
Railroad, and to cover all its property then or thereafter
acquired; a sale and conveyance in pursuance of the decree to one
Gregory by a trustee appointed by the court; a certificate of the
incorporation of the Washington & Potomac Railroad Company
reciting the foreclosure and sale of all the property of the
Southern Maryland Railroad, and incorporating Gregory and others to
take over the railroad; a conveyance of the property by Gregory to
the new company, and a mortgage by it of the same property to the
Union Trust Company of Philadelphia, both dated April 1, 1886, the
date of its incorporation; a certificate of the incorporation of
the plaintiff on July 24, 1901, reciting a decree of the United
States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland, which foreclosed
the last-named mortgage; reciting also a sale in pursuance of the
decree and incorporating the purchaser and others to take over the
railroad; and, finally, a deed to the plaintiff, by the Union Trust
Company, the trustee of the mortgage last mentioned.
The main objection urged to the title is that, as the record of
the last foreclosure proceedings was not put in, it does not appear
that the court attempted to foreclose property in the District of
Columbia, and that, as the decree is recited, it must be taken that
the trustee was acting only by virtue of the power which the decree
conferred. But the trustee had the
Page 199 U. S. 251
legal title, and purported to convey all the property which it
held. The source of its title was a conveyance to it by the owner.
The decree of the court only determined a foreclosure and
established the right of the trustee to convey without a breach of
trust. Even if it is not to be inferred that the decree was as
broad as it is recited to have been (
see Muller v. Dows,
94 U. S. 444), the
deed of the Union Trust Company conveyed whatever title it had
(
Williams v. Jackson, 107 U. S. 478).
The suggestion that the instrument must be read as limiting itself
by pure implication to rights conferred by the decree, and as
excluding the only source of the grantor's title, does not merit
extended discussion, but it may be mentioned that there is a
covenant for future assurances, in general terms, not limited to
any particular source. It is observed in one of the cases cited for
the defendant that "the recital in the deed cannot enlarge or
control the words of the grant."
Titcomb v. Currier, 4
Cush. 591, 592. Still less can such a recital as this be taken to
eliminate the only title which the grantor held.
See further
77 U. S.
Brock, 10 Wall. 519;
Bryan v. Brasius, 162 U.
S. 415.
Other purely technical attempts to upset the verdict, so far as
they need remark, may be disposed of in a few words. For some
unexplained reason, the plaintiff, in four of its counts, after
describing the land and identifying it by the above-mentioned
conveyance to the Southern Maryland Railroad, identified it further
as conveyed by the commissioners of the district on a certain date
-- we presume on a tax sale. It was objected that the latter
allegation disclosed a title outstanding in third persons. No
evidence was gone into upon the subject. Of course, the meaning of
the count was not to allege or admit such an outstanding title in
someone else when the main allegation was that the plaintiff "was
lawfully seised" at the date of the defendant's entry. We shall not
spend argument upon that.
The Southern Maryland road was authorized to extend into the
District of Columbia by act of Congress. Whether the
Page 199 U. S. 252
later roads had authority or not would not affect the title to
the land.
The land seems to have been conveyed to the defendant in error
after the plaintiff in error had taken possession, but that is
immaterial. In the District of Columbia, a conveyance by a
disseisee is valid.
Matthews v. Hevner, 2 App.D.C. 349,
357;
Roberts v.
Cooper, 20 How. 467,
61 U. S. 483;
Peck v. Heurich, 167 U. S. 624,
167 U. S.
629-630. A question is raised as to improvements, but it
was not raised below, and is not open here.
Judgment affirmed.