McKay v. Palmer

• Decision Date: 29 August 1988
• Docket Number: Docket No. 99881
• Citation: 427 N.W.2d 620,170 Mich.App. 288
• Parties: Joseph McKAY and Gloria McKay, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Marie T. PALMER, Harold C. Palmer, Winifred P. Croul, Moyed H. Najor, Hani Najor, Mowfak Najor, and Adnan Najor, jointly and severally, Defendants-Appellees, and Walter C. Palmer, Defendant. 170 Mich.App. 288, 427 N.W.2d 620
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 620

427 N.W.2d 620

Joseph McKAY and Gloria McKay, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Marie T. PALMER, Harold C. Palmer, Winifred P. Croul, Moyed H. Najor, Hani Najor, Mowfak Najor, and Adnan Najor, jointly and severally Defendants-Appellees and Walter C. Palmer, Defendant.

Docket No. 99881.

170 Mich.App. 288, 427 N.W.2d 620

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted April 7, 1988.

Decided July 20, 1988.

Released for Publication Aug. 29, 1988.

[170 MICHAPP 289] Frank W. Cormack, Quincy, Mass., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Clark, Klein & Beaumont by Michael V. Kell and Lenora P. Ledwon, Detroit, for Winifred P. Croul.

Before HOLBROOK, P.J., and MacKENZIE and BAGULEY, ^* JJ.

PER CURIAM.

This is a quiet title action. Plaintiffs appeal as of right from an order granting summary disposition in favor of defendants. We affirm.

The real estate at issue, commercial property located on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, was originally owned by Harold Palmer, a Massachusetts resident. Plaintiff Joseph McKay (plaintiff) was Palmer's Massachusetts attorney. In July, 1975, eighty-[170 MICHAPP 290] eight-year-old Palmer executed in Massachusetts a quitclaim deed conveying the property to himself and plaintiff as joint tenants with rights of survivorship and not as tenants in common. In November, 1975, defendants Najor purchased the property from Palmer, plaintiff, and plaintiff's wife on a ten-year land contract. The whereabouts of the land contract proceeds is apparently largely unknown.

In 1981, Palmer executed a quitclaim deed conveying the Woodward Avenue property to his children, defendants Winifred Croul and Marie, Harold, and Walter Palmer (defendants). Palmer also assigned his interest in the Najor land contract to defendants. Palmer died in 1983.

On September 18, 1984, plaintiff and his wife filed in Wayne County the instant action to quiet title and to compel an accounting by the Najors, who had been placing their land contract payments in an escrow account.

In 1980, Palmer and defendants had filed an action against plaintiff in a Massachusetts superior court, apparently seeking an accounting as to certain of Palmer's real and personal property (including the instant property) which plaintiff allegedly wrongfully obtained. The case was referred to a master, whose findings were agreed to be final. The following year, plaintiff was disbarred from practice in Massachusetts. In 1985, the master submitted a report finding that plaintiff had committed gross violations of the canons of professional ethics and was guilty of gross overreaching in connection with Palmer's creation of a joint tenancy between himself and plaintiff in the Woodward Avenue property. On August 22, 1986, the Massachusetts superior court issued a judgment and order stating:

[170 MICHAPP 291] "5. With respect to a Land Contract dated November 20, 1975 by and between Harold Palmer, Joseph P. McKay and Gloria McKay as Sellers and Mowfak H. Najor and Adnan H. Najor as Purchasers, which contract is recorded in the Wayne County Registry of Deeds, Detroit, Michigan at Liber 19271, Page 331, the Court orders that all sums due and owing under said Contract shall be paid directly to the Estate of Harold Palmer. No such payments shall be tendered to Joseph McKay or Gloria McKay nor are any payments due and owing to Joseph P. McKay or Gloria McKay.

* * *

"7. With respect to the Land Contract referred to in Paragraph 5 above, the Court further orders that any interest that Joseph P. McKay and Gloria McKay may have had by virtue of said Contract is hereby voided ab initio and the Court declares the Estate of Harold Palmer to be the sole holder of the mortgage indebtidness [sic] of the owners Mowfak H. Najor and Adnan H. Najor under said Contract."

After the Massachusetts order was entered, defendants filed a motion for summary disposition on the quiet title action, contending that the Massachusetts judgment was entitled to full faith and credit. Plaintiff, on the other hand, maintained that the Massachusetts judgment was of no effect because the courts of this state have exclusive jurisdiction over land situated in Michigan. The court granted defendants' motion, ruling:

"It's one thing to say that the State of Michigan has jurisdiction over the land, it's quite another thing to say that--we can have jurisdiction over the land and still recognize the findings of foreign Court. Michigan--those are two separate questions. We have jurisdiction over the land because it's physically located here, but that doesn't mean that every judgment otherwise valid rendered in [170 MICHAPP 292] any another [sic] state is to be disregarded simply because the land is located here."

The sole issue on appeal is whether the trial court erred in giving full faith and credit to a foreign judgment which determined the parties' interest in Michigan real estate. We conclude that the court did not err.

A final decree of a court of another state is accorded full faith and credit in a court of this state as construed by the courts of this state. U.S. Const. art. IV, Sec. 1; Gaylord v. Stuart, 372 Mich. 216, 125 N.W.2d 485 (1964). An adjudication of a...