Coram v. Palmer

Citations

• 63 Fla. 116

Syllabus

<p>1. Equitable estoppels are proper defenses in actions of ejectment in this State, and evidence of such estoppels is admissible under the plea of not guilty.</p> <p>2. Equitable estoppel, so far as it relates to the trial of title to land, is a doctrine by which a party is prevented from setting up his legal title because he has through his acts, words or silence, led another to take a position in which the assertion of the legal title would be contrary to equity and good conscience.</p> <p>3. 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 claim, he shall not afterwards be permitted to exercise his legal right against such person.</p> <p>4. Where a party entered on and made final payment for government land, but died about 1S46, before obtaining patent for the land, and for more than 30 years others have had possession of the land and put improvements on it, claiming ownership of it by virtue of deeds of conveyance primarily from the administrators of the deceased entryman, during which time the heirs of the decedent made no claim to the land, and there are no circumstances to prevent such possession and improvement under claim of ownership from operating as an equitable estoppel against such heirs, in an action of ejectment brought to .recover the land on a patent issued in 1906 in the name of the deceased entryman, a judgment for the defendant will be affirmed.</p>