Kirkaldie v. Larrabee

California Supreme Court
Kirkaldie v. Larrabee, 31 Cal. 455 (Cal. 1866)
Sawyer

Kirkaldie v. Larrabee

Opinion of the Court

By the Court, Sawyer, J.:

Had the deed been an absolute conveyance in fee instead of a mortgage in fee, any subsequently acquired title, under our statute concerning conveyances, would have inured to the benefit of the plaintiff. (Sec. 33.) The fact that the title subsequently comes from the United States would make no difference. There is nothing in the Homestead Act of 1863 forbidding a voluntary alienation by the grantee under that Act. The same principle applies to a mortgage of the fee. (Clark v. Baker, 14 Cal. 630.) The title will pass not merely in consequence of the enforcement of the payment of a debt by the ordinary process of the Courts, but in consequence of the voluntary contract of the party in executing the mortgage. The mortgagor of the fee is estopped from denying the existence of the lien which he has attempted to create, and from defeating by his own act the enforcement of the lien against the property thus mortgaged. (14 Cal. 633-4; see also Tartar v. Hall, 3 Cal. 263; Haffley v. Maier, 13 Cal. 14; Whitney v. Buckman, 13 Cal. 538; Warburton v. Mattox, Morris, [Iowa,] 369; Pierson v. David, 1 Clarke, Iowa, 26; Camp v. Smith, 2 Minn. 173; Hope v. Stone, 10 Minn. 141; Bush v. Marshall, 6 How., U. S., 288; Threadgill v. Pintard, 12 How. 37; Fackler v. Ford, 24 How. 323; Phelps v. Kellogg, 15 Ill. 135.) We think the plaintiff was entitled to the ordinary judgment *458for a sale of the mortgaged property without any exception of rights subsequently acquired by the mortgagor under the Homestead Act of 1862.

Judgment reversed and the District Court instructed to enter judgment in accordance with these views.

Reference

Full Case Name
GEORGE KIRKALDIE, and C. W. A. ARENZ v. JOHN R. LARRABEE, ELLEN M. LARRABEE, his Wife, and A. W. CUTTS
Cited By
16 cases
Status
Published
Syllabus
Federal Homestead Act.—There is nothing in the Act of Congress of May 20th, 1862, granting homesteads to settlers on public lands, which forbids a voluntary alienation of the land by the grantee who has acquired the same as a homestead. Mortgage of Public Lands.-—If one who is in possession of public lands mortgages the same iu fee, and afterwards acquires title to the same under the Federal Homestead Act, he is estopped from denying the lien of the mortgage, and cannot set up a title afterwards voluntarily acquired to defeat it. Section thirty-three of the Act concerning conveyances applies to mortgages as well as absolute conveyances.