McDonald v. McCoy

Citations

• 121 Cal. 55
• 53 P. 421
• 1898 Cal. LEXIS 852

Syllabus

<p>Mexican Grant—Contract of Sale by Another—Ratification—Transfer of Title. —Where lands held under Mexidan grant prior to a petition for the confirmation were sold by another person than the grantee, who executed a contract in his own name, assuming, as party of the first part, to sell the title of the Mexican grantee for a specified price, a certain sum to be paid in cash, and a like sum to be paid when such grantee should deliver to the purchasers a deed in fee simple, which it was agreed should be delivered by a certain date, and further agreeing that if such grantee should refuse to ratify the agreement or to deliver the deed, then the party of the first part should refund the cash payment, and pay all damages resulting from dispossession of the purchasers, for which he bound himself, his heirs, ■ executors, or administrators, such contract, not purporting to be the contract of the Mexican grantee, was not capable of being ratified by him as a contract; and where he had rendered himself incapable of delivering a fee simple title to the purchasers by a previous transfer of his title to another person, a subsequently attempted ratification by him of the contract was wholly futile.</p> <p>Id.—Confirmation of Grant—Patent—Claim of Deceased Husband— Deed to Widow—Rights of Heirs—Estoppel.—Where a husband succeeded to the possession of the lands under such contract of sale, and his second wife, after his death, purchased the title and took ' a deed from the Mexican grantee to herself for the sole benefit of herself and her heirs, exclusive of the heirs of the husband under a former marriage, and sought for confirmation of the grant to herself and her two children, and filed affidavits, showing the claims of her husband, and that the contract had not been ratified by the Mexican grantee to the purchaser under such contract, though he never objected to the possession of her husband, and that since the husband’s death he had ratified it in favor of herself and children