## Facts

- Carrie B. Hoerger owned a vacant Minneapolis lot subject to delinquent taxes.
- In May 1906, Lucius A. Hughes agreed to buy the lot for $25 and sent payment along with a deed form for execution.
- Hoerger and her husband executed and acknowledged the deed but returned it to Hughes with the grantee name left blank; they retained the consideration.
- Hughes did not insert his name as grantee until shortly before recording the deed in December 1910.
- In April 1909, Hoerger conveyed the same lot by quitclaim deed to Duryea & Wilson for $25; that deed was not recorded until December 21, 1910.
- In November 1909, Duryea & Wilson conveyed the lot by warranty deed to the Board of Education; that deed was recorded January 27, 1910.
- Recording sequence: (1) Duryea & Wilson → Board recorded (Jan. 27, 1910); (2) Hoerger → Hughes recorded (Dec. 16, 1910); (3) Hoerger → Duryea & Wilson recorded (Dec. 21, 1910).
- The Board sued to determine adverse claims to the lot; the trial court ruled for the Board, and Hughes appealed from the order denying a new trial.

## Issues

1. Whether a deed delivered with the grantee name left blank ever becomes an effective conveyance when the grantee later inserts his own name.
2. Whether Hughes, as a later purchaser, took priority under the recording act by recording his deed from the common grantor before the prior deed from that grantor was recorded.
3. Whether the prior recording of a deed from an unrecorded grantee (Duryea & Wilson → Board) gave constructive notice to Hughes of the earlier unrecorded deed (Hoerger → Duryea & Wilson).

## Decision

- Reversed the order denying a new trial and granted a new trial.
- Held the Hoerger-to-Hughes deed became operative when Hughes inserted his name as grantee under implied authority, without re-execution or re-acknowledgment.
- Held Hughes qualified as a good-faith purchaser for value protected by the recording act because his deed from the common grantor was recorded before Hoerger’s deed to Duryea & Wilson was recorded.
- Held the Board’s earlier recording of its deed from Duryea & Wilson did not constitute constructive notice to Hughes of Hoerger’s unrecorded deed to Duryea & Wilson and could not defeat Hughes’s priority.

## Legal Principles

- A deed that omits the grantee’s name is inoperative until the grantee’s name is lawfully inserted.
- If the grantor delivers an otherwise fully executed deed with a blank grantee line and accepts and retains consideration, the grantee is presumed to have implied authority to fill the blank; such authority need not be in writing.
- Once the grantee inserts the name under valid authority, the deed becomes effective without re-signing or re-acknowledgment.
- Under the recording act, a later purchaser in good faith for value who records first from the common grantor prevails over a prior purchaser whose deed from that grantor remains unrecorded; the prior deed is void as against the later purchaser.
- Recording a deed from a person whose title from the common grantor is not yet of record is outside the apparent chain of title and does not give constructive notice to a later purchaser from the common grantor.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that Hughes obtained an effective conveyance when he inserted his name into the previously delivered blank-grantee deed under implied authority and that, as a good-faith purchaser who first recorded a deed from the common grantor, he had priority over the Board’s claim based on a deed recorded earlier but derived through an unrecorded link in the chain of title.


Bd. of Educ. of Minneapolis v. Hughes, 118 Minn. 404, 136 N.W. 1095 (Minn. 1912)