Tilley v. Bridges

Citations

• 105 Ill. 336
• 1883 Ill. LEXIS 94

Syllabus

<p>1. Judicial sale—rule of caveat emptor applies. It is a general and well settled rule that the doctrine of caveat emptor applies to all judicial sales, under which falls an administrator’s sale of lands of his intestate to pay debts of the estate.</p> <p>2. An administrator or executor selling lands under a decree of court has no authority to warrant the title of the land he sells, and the purchaser at such sale is bound to examine the title, or purchase at his peril. If he buys without an examination, and obtains no title, he must, as a general rule, suffer the loss arising from Ms neglect, unless fraud or mistake has entered into the transaction.</p> <p>3. Former adjudication—as a bar to second suit. Where a bill filed by a purchaser of land at an administrator’s sale, to have the title to land purchased by him confirmed by decree, on the ground of a mistake in omitting the description of the land in the petition of the administrator and the decree of sale, and to correct the mistake, is dismissed for want of equity, the decree of dismissal will be a bar to a second bill in chancery by such purchaser seeking to recover of the estate the money paid for the land, and for taxes paid and improvements made by him upon the land before discovery of the mistake, and this though in the former bill another person, who had no interest in the subject matter involved, was joined as a co-complainant.</p> <p>4. Where the question of a mistake is involved in a bill in equity, and the question of mistake is decided against the complainant, the decree will be held binding and conclusive upon him in any subsequent suit seeking other relief on the same ground.</p> <p>5. Where some specific fact or question has been adjudicated and determined in a former suit, and the same fact or question is again put in issue in a subsequent suit between the same parties, its determination in the former suit, if properly presented and relied on, will be held conclusive upon the parties in the lat