Goodin v. Goodin

• Decision Date: 18 February 1903
• Parties: GOODIN et al. v. GOODIN.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

72 S.W. 502

172 Mo. 40

GOODIN et al. v. GOODIN.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

February 18, 1903.

DECEDENT'S ESTATE—PAROL AGREEMENT TO CONVEY LAND—NATURE OF PROOF REQUIRED.

1. To establish a claim by a son, as against other heirs of the deceased father, that the father made an oral contract to give the son a certain tract of land in consideration of services which the son had theretofore performed, and that improvements upon the land were made in reliance upon this agreement, the evidence must be so cogent and satisfactory as to leave no room for reasonable doubt.

2. In ejectment by the widow and children of a decedent against one of decedent's sons to recover a tract of land, evidence considered, and held insufficient to establish defendant's claim that decedent had entered into a parol agreement with defendant to give him the land in question in consideration of services performed by defendant, and that improvements erected upon the land were made in reliance on this agreement.

Appeal from circuit court, Greene county; Jas. T. Neville, Judge.

Action by W. R. Goodin and others against J. L. Goodin. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Gideon & Gideon, for appellant. Patterson & Patterson, for respondents.

BRACE, P. J.

This is an action in ejectment to recover possession of the N. E. ¼ of N. E. ¼ of section 31, township 28, range 23, in Christian county, Mo. The petition is in common form. The answer of the defendant admits possession, denies the other allegations of the petition, and sets up an equitable defense, on which issue was joined by reply. A change of venue was taken from the Christian to the Greene county circuit court, where the case was tried before the court without a jury. The finding and judgment was for the plaintiffs for the undivided nine-tenths of the premises, and the defendant appeals.

In February, 1899, John Goodin, late of the county of Christian, died intestate, seised in fee of the premises. The parties to this action are his widow, who elected to take a child's share, and the heirs at law of said deceased; the defendant being his son, and the plaintiffs his widow, children, and grand-children, entitled to the undivided nine-tenths of the premises, as found and adjudged by the circuit court, unless the defendant has made good his equitable defense and counterclaim. The substance of that defense and claim is that on the 1st day of January, 1892, the defendant entered into the possession of the premises under a verbal contract with his father, by which his father, in consideration of the work and labor which defendant theretofore had done for him after he had arrived at the age of maturity, agreed to give him the premises, and thereafter to make him a deed for the same; that, in pursuance of such agreement, he erected a dwelling house and made other valuable improvements thereon, and since has continued to occupy the same as his home. The evidence tended to prove: That the defendant became of age about the year 1884, and was married in 1890. That between those dates he worked for his father on his home place, doing general farm work, and assisting in the building of a house, "off and on" for about two or three years, during which time he made that place his home, and his stock, consisting of some horses and hogs, were kept on the farm; that after his marriage he went elsewhere to live; that his father owned about 350 acres of land in Christian and Greene counties. That one of his tracts, containing 80 acres, consisted of two adjoining 40's—one north of the boundary line between those counties in Greene county, and the other south of that line in Christian county. The south 40 in Christian county is the land in controversy. That some time about the 1st of January, 1892, the defendant went into the possession of this tract of land. That he went into the possession of the north 40 in Greene county as a tenant of his father from year to year, agreeing to pay as rent therefor one-third of the crop to be raised thereon, is conceded. The evidence tends to prove that the other 40, the premises in question, was timber land under fence, rough and rocky, of which about 18 acres was in cultivation, the remainder in its natural state. That after the defendant went into possession he cleared up and put in cultivation some 10 or 12 acres more, the timber off which he either used himself or sold to others. That he repaired the fencing, set out a small orchard, dug and walled a well, erected a one-story frame dwelling house of two rooms 14 by 14 feet each, with a box kitchen 12 by 14 feet attached, a stable or two, a smokehouse, and some other small necessary buildings; the value of which improvements to the premises was probably about $600, and the cost, aside from the labor of the defendant, and the materials used from the place, was probably about $300. Of this outlay $149 was for lumber that went into the dwelling house, for which the defendant and his father executed their joint promissory note, which note, with the accumulated interest, amounting in the aggregate to $197, his father afterward, on the 1st of June, 1898, paid. The evidence also tended to prove that the defendant received $1 per load for the wood he sold off the place; that the premises were always assessed to his father, and the taxes thereon paid by him as long as he lived; that between the time when defendant became of age and was married he lived for a time on another tract of land, which he rented from his father, and for some 12 or 18 months was engaged in the livery business in a neighboring town; that at the time of his marriage his father held two notes of his, one dated March 15, 1889, for $250, payable to his father, and one dated March 9, 1889, for $150, payable to a third party, which he continued to hold until his death; that the rental value of the premises was about $100 per annum. In connection with the foregoing facts, the evidence upon which the defendant relied to support his claim is thus summarized in the brief of his counsel: Dora Steigel testified that "she worked at John Goodin's for about two years, and when she first went there the deceased said he would go after John, and have him come home and work there, and help build that house, and that he would deed John that 80 acres of land. That was about 14 or 15 years ago....