Terrell v. Weymouth

Citations

• 32 Fla. 255

Syllabus

<p>PARTITION — ADMINISTRATOR CAN NOT HAVE — EQUITABLE ESTOPPEL BY conduct.</p> <p>1. An administrator has no authority to institute or maintain proceeding in equity for the partition of land in which his intestate ■was interested.</p> <p>2. Where minors are interested in land involved in a partition proceeding, such proceeding and all orders made therein are void as to such minors unless they have been made parties thereto by service upon them personally.</p> <p>3. Equitable estoppel by conduct, so far as it relates to the trial of title to land, is that doctrine by which a pan'ty 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>4. Estoppel • depends upon the facts and circumstances of each case.</p> <p>5. The land in controversy, in which the plaintiff and his brother and sister were originally equally interested, was sold for partition under proceedings that were void as to all of them by reason of their not being made parties thereto, but at such partition sale the brother and sister of the plaintiff, through their guardian, purchased the entire property: and the plaintiff afr terwards, on coming of age, received from his guardian, to whom it was paid, his full proportion of the proceeds of such sale. After such sale the plaintiff’s brother died intestate leaving the plaintiff and his sister his sole heirs at law. A short while before the plaintiff became of age his sister, claiming to own a half interest in said land by virtue of their purchase at such partition sale, and an additional one-fourth interest therein by descent from her deceased brother, sold and conveyed the three-fourths interest therein thus claimed by her to one J. G-. S.; and the plaintiff, on arriving at his majority, sold and conveyed the remaining one-fourth interest in the land to the said J. G. S., asserting to J.