De Lashmutt v. Teetor

• Decision Date: 02 June 1914
• Docket Number: No. 15700.,15700.
• Citation: 261 Mo. 412,169 S.W. 34
• Parties: DE LASHMUTT et al. v. TEETOR et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

169 S.W. 34

261 Mo. 412

DE LASHMUTT et al. v. TEETOR et al.

No. 15700.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

June 2, 1914.

Rehearing Denied July 14, 1914.

1. PROPERTY (§ 6)—TRANSFERS — VALIDITY — WHAT LAW GOVERNS.

Real estate transfers, whether by act of the parties or by operation of law, depend for their validity and effect on the laws of the jurisdiction in which the property is situated.

2. TRUSTS (§ 189)—TRUSTEES—FOREIGN APPOINTMENT — CONVEYANCE OF DOMESTIC REAL PROPERTY—AUTHORITY.

A substituted trustee, appointed by a Maryland court exercising equity jurisdiction in place of a surviving testamentary trustee authorized by will to sell testator's real property, had no power, by virtue of such appointment or will, to convey real property belonging to testator located in Missouri.

3. CONVERSION (§ 22)—SALE OF REAL PROPERTY—RECONVERSION.

While a testator by the provisions of his will may convert real property into personalty whenever his plan of distribution requires it, which conversion takes place at the moment of testator's death, it is nevertheless subject to be reconverted into its original character, and will be reconverted by the election of the ultimate and absolute owner under the will, being at the time sui juris, to take the land in its original condition before sale.

4. CONVERSION (§ 22)—TRUSTS (§ 131)—POWER OF SALE.

Where a trust consisted of a naked power in the trustees to sell land in controversy when and as they deemed best and pay the proceeds to testator's executors for distribution, one of them being required to hold an undivided one-sixth for the benefit of complainants' mother for life, remainder to her children, the trustees were invested with the legal title for the purpose of sale only, having no right to possession or management of the property, and, they having failed to exercise the power, the land was reconverted into realty, and the legal estate only remaining in the trustees became vested by the statute of uses (Rev. St. 1909, § 2867) in the person or persons entitled to the equitable estate under the will.

5. TRUSTS (§ 191) — CREATION — PURPOSE — TERMINATION.

Where testator devised his real property to certain of his executors as trustees for the sole and only purpose of selling the land and paying over the proceeds to the executors for distribution, the power of sale vesting in the trustees could not survive a final distribution, settlement, and discharge of the executors, when the title vested in the persons holding the beneficial estate, so that a substituted trustee subsequently appointed had no power to exercise the power of sale.

6. TRUSTS (§ 189) — TRUSTEES — POWERS — RIGHTS OF REMAINDERMEN—LIFE ESTATE.

Where a trustee held title for a life tenant only, and not for the remaindermen, the trustee could not bind the remaindermen or their title in any way that the life tenant could not have bound them by her acts had no trustee intervened, and hence could not dispose of the remainder by estoppel or by ratification of a void deed.

7. ESTOPPEL (§ 52)—"EQUITABLE ESTOPPEL" —"ESTOPPEL IN PAIS."

"Equitable estoppel" or "estoppel in pais" is that condition in which justice forbids that one speak the truth in his own behalf, and when a party by his conduct or language has caused another reasonably to believe in the existence of a certain state of things and, having a legal right to do so, to act on the belief he will not be permitted to set up the contrary to the prejudice of the person so acting. The act or conduct may be the simple failure of one against whom it is invoked to speak when it is his duty to do so, but whether his conduct be the result of negligence or design, it may be corrected before the party invoking it has acted upon it to his prejudice.

8. TRUSTS (§ 237) — TRUSTEES' DEED — INVALIDITY—RATIFICATION—ESTOPPEL.

Where certain remaindermen, entitled to the fee of certain property discharged from a trust under their grandfather's will, had no knowledge of an invalid sale of the land by a substituted trustee when they accepted a partial distribution, the fact that such distribution consisted in part of the proceeds of such sale did not constitute a ratification thereof, nor estop them thereafter to object to the sale.

Appeal from Circuit Court, St. Clair County; C. A. Denton, Judge.

Suit by John S. De Lashmutt and others against G. O. Teetor and others. From a decree in favor of defendants, complainants appeal. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

This suit was begun by filing the petition in the St. Clair county circuit court October 3, 1907, and summons was taken at the same date. The plaintiffs are the surviving husband and three sons and one daughter of Cleanthe Eugenia De Lashmutt, deceased, a daughter of John Sifford, deceased, who is the common source of all title asserted by any party to the suit. The plaintiffs claim title to 19/150 of a tract of land in said county, particularly described as the W. ½ of the S. E. ¼ of section 7, township 37, range 28. The defendant Teetor claims title to the whole through a conveyance dated April 7, 1893, by one Aubrey Pearre, purporting to act as trustee for Mrs. De Lashmutt, as well as administrator with the will annexed of the estate of John Sifford, to one D. L. Dade, for a consideration of $1,000. The defendants Darrow and Henry are beneficiary and trustee in a deed of trust under the Dade title. The other defendants, of whom there are 15, are descendants of John Sifford, and would represent all the other interests in the land, if the theory upon which the plaintiffs are proceeding be the true one. They, however, are seeking no relief and do not answer. The theory of the plaintiffs is that the deed of Pearre to Dade is void for want of power to convey in any of the capacities assumed by the maker.

The amended petition upon which the cause was tried was filed November 14, 1908, and is in two counts. The first count states the interest of the parties in connection with their relationship to John Sifford. That he died testate in Frederick county, Md., in 1878, seised of the land. That his will was duly admitted to probate by the orphans' court of Maryland for said county, and established as such will by the formal decree of said court. That letters testamentary issued out of said court to his son John Sifford and one John Loats, the only surviving executors named in said will, who thereupon duly qualified, and entered upon the discharge of the duties of said office. Loats soon died, and John E. Sifford became the only surviving executor.

"That by said last will all the lands of said testator in St. Clair county, Mo., were devised to John E. Sifford and two others and the successor or successors of them, in trust, with power to sell and convey all or any portion of said lands as might be considered in the discretion of said trustees for the best interest of said testator's estate, and, further, to pay over all of the proceeds of such sales to testator's executors to be divided amongst his devisees, including plaintiffs."

That the other trustees died without having assumed to execute the powers vested in them by the will, and that John E. Sifford accepted said trust and entered upon the performance of his duties as such trustee. That John E. Sifford in July, 1885, resigned as executor, and refused to act further under said will in that capacity, and thereupon Aubrey Pearre (who had since the execution of the will intermarried with the testator's daughter Ann Josephine Sifford) was by the said orphans' court duly appointed administrator de bonis non cum testamento annexo, and qualified and entered upon his duties as such. In 1887 John E. Sifford filed in the circuit court for Frederick county, Md., a court of general jurisdiction, sitting in equity, his petition to be relieved from the trust with reference to the St. Clair county lands, and for the appointment of Aubrey Pearre as his successor. This proceeding was ex parte. The court relieved Sifford of the trust and appointed Pearre, who, purporting to act in both capacities of executor and trustee, executed the deed to Dade already referred to. That the will was not filed for record in St. Clair county until February 24, 1904, and no ancillary or other administration on the Sifford estate was ever taken out in Missouri; that the only color of title held by Teetor is through the said deed to Dade, which is utterly null and void. The petition further states that under the will of John Sifford, his daughter Cleanthe E. De Lashmutt was getting a life estate in equity of an undivided one-sixth of all lands of the testator, which was devised to his daughter Josephine Sifford in trust for the said Cleanthe, with directions to permit her to use and enjoy the same, and receive the rents, issues, and income thereof during her life; that she died March 25, 1903, leaving surviving her her husband, the plaintiff Van E. De Lashmutt, to whom she was married prior to the death of her father, and the other plaintiffs, together with Frank T. De Lashmutt and Gertrude D. Jackson, her children and sole heirs. Frank T. De Lashmutt has since died, and Gertrude Jackson has refused to assert any interest in the lands in suit and is made defendant. The petition then proceeds as follows:

"Plaintiffs further state that they each (except Van E. De Lashmutt) and including Frank E. De Lashmutt have received some money from the estate of John Sifford, deceased, paid to them by and through their said mother's trustee under the will of said John Sifford; and these plaintiffs say that according to their information and belief a portion of the money so received was derived from the proceeds of the sale of the land in suit, but that these plaintiffs have no sufficient knowledge or information concerning same to state definitely what amount or proportion of the proceeds of the sale of said land have been received by them or any of them. And these plaintiffs say that, having...