Harper v. Paradise
Supreme Court of Georgia
210 S.E.2d 710 (1974)
In 1922, Susan Harper granted her daughter-in-law Maude a life estate in a farm, with remainder to Maude's children, but the deed was misplaced and not recorded until 1957. In 1928, after Susan's death, her heirs executed and recorded a document acknowledging the lost 1922 deed and purporting to convey their own interest in the farm to Maude; Maude then used the property to secure a loan from Ella Thornton, defaulted, and Thornton foreclosed via a sheriff's deed recorded in 1936, with title eventually passing to the Paradises (defendants) in 1955. After Maude died in 1972, both Maude's children (the 1922 remaindermen) and the Paradises claimed the farm, and the trial court directed a verdict for the Paradises, prompting the Harper children's appeal.
Whether a later-recorded conveyance that expressly references an earlier, unrecorded conveyance from the same owner can nonetheless receive priority over that earlier conveyance.