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163 N.C. 177

79 S.E 298

Rawls v. . Mayo

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided September 17, 1913

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1913-09-17

Appeal by plaintiff from Whedbee, J., at May Term, 1913, of Beaufort. . On 17 March, 1908, L. R. Mayo and wife gave to James L. Mayo an option to purchase the land he bought of E. Tuthill, at any time on or before 15 July, 1908, for $6,000. At that time Mayo’s ownership of said tract was subject to an agreement with Whilden Springer made 7 May, 1904, and duly recorded 21 November, 1907. On April, 1908, L. R. Mayo died, leaving a last will and testament. .

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1913-09-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently January 1972

4 state decisions

101913192019301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Allek, J.

¶1 It is admitted that tbe plaintiffs cannot recover if. tbe purchase money in the bands of J. L. Mayo is not personalty, and it appears in tbe record that a'judgment has been rendered in an action, to which tbe plaintiffs were parties, adjudging it to be real estate, from which there has been no appeal.

¶2 If this adjudication was wrong, it is because it was based on the erroneous application of legal principles, and the remedy to correct the error was by appeal. Stafford v. Gallops, 123 N. C., 21; McLeod v. Graham, 132 N. C., 475.

¶3 Nor can the fact that the plaintiffs were'infants at the time of the adjudication, and that the judgment was by consent, benefit the plaintiff, if it be conceded that the part adjudging the purchase money to be real estate was by consent, which is not beyond dispute, because if treated as the contract of infants, which is the most favorable view for the plaintiffs, it would be voidable and not void (Millsaps v. Estes, 137 N. C., 535), and cannot be attacked collaterally. Earp v. Minton, 138 N. C., 204. The plaintiffs have not sought to impeach the judgment by motion or action, but treat it as void, which, as we have seen, is not a correct view to take of it, and we must hold that it precludes a recovery.

¶4 Affirmed.

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