that the plaintiff be adjudged to be the equitable owner of the land by virtue of its ownership of the $1000 note; and that it be adjudged to have a lien upon the land for the payment of this note, protest fees, interest, costs and disbursements, such lien to be prior and superior to the rights of the defendants.
From the facts pleaded as stated above, certain legal conclusions follow as a matter of course, none of which are open to serious controversy. They are: Upon the sale of the land under the executory contract an equitable conversion was effected, so that in equity the land was regarded as belonging to Josephine Howe and the purchase price to Clifford. The legal title was retained by Clifford as security for the payment of the purchase price. Ina sense the equitable owner, Josephine Howe, mortgaged to Clifford her ownership to secure the purchase price notes. When Clifford transferred one of these notes to the Rolette County Bank the security which was incident to the debt was likewise transferred in equity. So that as against Josephine Howe the Rolette County Bank could avail itself of the security to the same extent that Clifford could, had the notes remained in his hands. When Clifford transferred the legal title to the iand to the Farmers National Bank of Hendricks, Minnesota, he effected an assignment of his rights under the sale contract, and when Josephine Hanlyn quit-claimed to Peterson, who was acting for the bank, she released the obligation of Clifford and the Hendricks bank to hold either the title or her equitable interest as security for the payment of the notes, and upon payment to convey to her the legal title. The bank, through Peterson, had assumed the payment of the notes as a principal obligation. In short, by the quit-claim deed Mrs. Howe-Hanlyn released her rights under the contract. The simple question presented on these facts, considered in the light of these indisputable, legal conclusions, is this: May Allen, the subsequent purchaser from the bank, safely rely upon the record which shows the chain of legal title running to his grantor and a satisfaction of all equitable claims or liens incident to the land contract by the person in whose favor these equitable claims or liens prima facie exist, or is the purchaser, taking the legal title with record notice of the existence of the contract, charged with notice of the disposition of all the negotiable notes for which the land is security?
We have found this question to be more difficult of solution than might appear from the simple statement of it. Its various phases have undergone extended discussion in the various authorities that have had
