Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/128

 of legal authority is coptrary to public policy and void. LeRoy v. Jacobosky, 136 N. C. 443, 67 L. R. A. 977.

John E. Greene and Olaf Braatelien, for respondent.

, J. This is an appeal from a judgment which is referred to in the notice of appeal as “a preliminary decree and judgment made by the district court of Divide county,” in an action brought for the ostensible purpose of securing to the wards of the plaintiff a conveyance of a certain interest in the lands to which the defendant Regina Jasper, the mother of the wards, holds the legal title, and for general equitable relief. The facts are as follows:

Kjettil Knutson, deceased, died seized of the northeast quarter of section 21, township 163 N., of range 98, in Divide county. He died intestate, leaving as his heirs Regina Knutson and four minor children. In the probate proceedings the quarter section above described was decreed one-third to Regina Knutson and the remaining two-thirds interest to the minors. Regina Knutson later married Peter Jasper, and upon her petition to the county court he was appointed guardian of the minors. On March 6, 1916, Peter Jasper filed a petition in the county court for license to sell at private sale the two-thirds interest of the minors in the above described property. The petition recites that Regina Jasper, the mother of the minors and owner of an undivided one-third interest in the land, is desirous of selling and disposing of her interest therein; that the land is unimproved; that the income is not sufficient to be profitable from year to year without the expenditure of money; and that the best interests of the estate of the minors would be subserved by a sale and the investment of the proceeds. An order of license was made authorizing a sale for cash or on time with sufficient security, the proceeds to be invested according to law. The property was ostensibly sold thereunder to the defendant Hans K. Haugland. Haugland was the owner of the northwest quarter of section 26 in the same township, and instead of paying cash for the land he conveyed his quarter section to Regina Jasper. The report of sale states that Hans K. Haugland became the purchaser for the sum of $2,000, and the order of confirmation recites that it was sold “for the sum of $2,000, the said sum to be secured by a mortgage on the land sold and bearing 7 per cent interest.”

Pursuant to the order of confirmation Peter Jasper, by guardian’s deed