Videon v. Cowart, M--421

• Decision Date: 17 November 1970
• Docket Number: No. M--421,M--421
• Citation: 241 So.2d 434
• Parties: Rachel L. VIDEON, as Executrix of the Estate of W. O. Videon, Appellant, v. Ruth Louise COWART, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 434

241 So.2d 434

Rachel L. VIDEON, as Executrix of the Estate of W. O. Videon, Appellant, v. Ruth Louise COWART, Appellee.

No. M--421.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

Nov. 17, 1970.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 1970.

Bennett, Schwartz & Schwartz, Gainesville, for appellant.

Scruggs, Carmichael, Tomlinson & Roscow, Gainesville, for appellee.

CARROLL, DONALD, K., Acting Chief Judge.

The plaintiff in an action to cancel and rescind a warranty deed has appealed from an adverse final judgment entered by the Circuit Court for Alachua County.

The basic question presented for our determination in his appeal is whether a conditional delivery of a deed to a third person, under the circumstances described below, constitutes a legally effective delivery of the deed.

Briefly stated, the facts established by the evidence and pertinent to the present consideration are as follows:

One T. B. Videon died on November 30, 1968, leaving a widow, Hattie Videon, two sons, Buddy and Otis, and a daughter, the defendant, Ruth Cowart. On February 15, 1963, the deceased had executed the deed in question conveying certain lands owned by him to Ruth. After he had executed this deed, the deceased kept it in his possession, first in a safety deposit box in Gainesville and then in a shoe box in his room at his home in Archer. He gave orders that no one, not even his wife, was to go into the room where he kept the deed.

On the day before he died, T. B. Videon removed the deed from his room and took it to Bronson. Accompanying him to Bronson were his son, Buddy, his wife, Hattie, and her daughter-in-law, Dorothy Bell. Upon their arrival at Bronson, T. B. Videon sent Buddy to put documentary stamps on the deed, which Buddy did.

While in Bronson, T. B. Videon executed his will and gave the deed in question to Hattie with instructions to her to hold the deed until his death and then, if Buddy asked for the deed, to give it to him. Hattie testified that, when the deed was given to her, she was acting analogously to a bank's safety deposit box, that her husband had the right to get the deed back from her at any time, and that was the way he wanted to hold the deed. Buddy testified that his father's instruction to him was to get the deed from Hattie and give it to Ruth upon the condition that Ruth should renounce all claim to the remaining assets of the grantor's estate and accept the deed as her share of the estate.

A day or two after T. B. Videon's death on November 30, 1968, Buddy asked for and obtained, the deed from Hattie. On January 1 or 2, 1969, Buddy gave the deed to Ruth, who recorded the deed about a week later. Subsequently, W. O. Videon (Otis), as a son and legatee of T. B. Videon filed the present action to rescind the said deed for lack of effective delivery.

In their appellate briefs both parties agree that there is language in Florida cases indicating that a conditional delivery of a deed to a third party, absent a time escrow, is invalid, but...