Faxon v. All Persons

In Faxon v. All Persons (1913) 166 Cal. 707, plaintiff acquired property encumbered by a mortgage barred by the statute of limitations. Although the court held that the plaintiff in Faxon was a bona fide purchaser, the court did not hold that this was a condition precedent to her bringing a quiet title suit. The Faxon court stated: "In the present case, however, the plaintiff acquired the land by purchase for a consideration after the lapse of the time within which an action to foreclose the mortgage could have been brought -- after, indeed, it had been decided in this court that there was no right of foreclosure. The plaintiff was not personally liable for the debt, and was under no moral obligation to discharge it. When she bought the land, the records showed that the lien of the mortgage had become extinguished. ( Civ. Code, sec. 2911.) It is difficult to see, therefore, how the land itself, so bought, was bound, legally or equitably, by the debt. There seems to be no good reason for refusing to quiet the title of an owner in the situation of the plaintiff here. To apply the rule contended for by appellant to such a case would be equivalent to holding that the owner of the property could never have his title quieted against an unpaid mortgage not satisfied of record, however long the lapse of time since the maturity of the debt, and however numerous the transfers since the expiration of the right to foreclose. To so hold would result in perpetuating clouds upon titles, where no substantial equity demands that the merchantability of real property be thus hampered. para. None of the decisions in this state, or elsewhere, so far as we are advised, has denied relief to a plaintiff seeking to quiet his title against an outlawed mortgage by which neither he, nor his land, was equitably bound." ( Id., at pp. 721-722.)