Blanchard v. Kingston

• Citation: 222 Mich. 631,193 N.W. 241
• Decision Date: 27 April 1923
• Docket Number: No. 63.,63.
• Parties: BLANCHARD et al. v. KINGSTON et al.
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan

222 Mich. 631

193 N.W. 241

BLANCHARD et al.

v.KINGSTON et al.

No. 63.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

April 27, 1923.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Calhoun County, in Chancery; Walter H. North, Judge.

Bill in equity by Day Blanchard and another against Elva Kingston and others for reformation of a deed. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

The following is the finding of the circuit court:

The bill was filed by the plaintiffs in this case for the purpose of securing the reformation of a deed given by Fidelia Bliss, now deceased, to the plaintiffs on or about the 14th day of September 1920. Mrs. Bliss was the morther of the plaintiff Jessie Blanchard, and it is the claim of the plaintiffs that it was intended by all the parties to the deed that it should convey to said plaintiffs lots 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Allen's division to the village of Tekonsha, Calhoun county, Mich. But it is alleged that by a mistake of the scrivener the description in the deed covered only lots Nos. 7 and 8. It is further claimed that this mistake was not discovered until after the death of the grantor.

The defendants are the other heirs of Mrs. Fidelia Bliss, who died intestate, and they urge as a defense that the deed in question was procured by undue influence of the plaintiffs exercised on said grantor, and also that it was executed at a time when the grantor was mentally incompetent. Practically no proofs were offered in behalf of the defendants touching either of the above-named defenses. But a third defense is urged to the effect that the money with which the original purchase of this property was made by the grantor and her husband, who were joint tenants, was received as the result of a fire loss being paid under an insurance policy covering the house located upon land in which said Fidelia Bliss and her husband had only a life estate, and all the parties to this suit were the remaindermen. I have given this claim on the part of the defendants careful consideration, and I am fully convinced that their position is not tenable. They allowed the property which was purchased by Fidelia Bliss and her husband to stand in their names in fee for years without a word of complaint so far as the record in this case shows. Certainly after each of said parties have passed way, and after all these years of acquiescence, it would be unsafe and inequitable to look with favor upon such a claim as is made by the defendants. The record is further complicated by the undisputed fact that, in addition to the insurance money which went into the property in question, Fidelia Bliss received a substantial inheritance all of which was invested in said property either by way of repairs or incident to the purchase price. The record clearly shows that at a time when she was perfectly competent, and without being in any way unduly influenced incident to the transaction, Fidelia Bliss intended to convey, and evidently thought she had conveyed, to the plaintiffs in this case, all four of the lots first above mentioned; and, as against any claim of the defendants in this property either as heirs at law of Fidelia Bliss or by reason of the facts set forth in their cross-bill, the plaintiffs are entitled to the relief sought.

It is also urged in the briefs filed in behalf of the defendants that the conveyance sought to be reformed was without any consideration, and because of the gratuitous character of the transaction it is claimed the plaintiffs are not entitled to reformation. The deed does not recite a sufficient consideration, and this recital is not disproven by the testimony in the case; and further plaintiffs at the time of taking the conveyance evidently assumed at least the moral obligation of caring for the grantor. In event this objection comes with much less force when urged by these defendants than it would if the grantor were resisting the relief sought by the plaintiffs; and I am satisfied that it would be inequitable to allow the defendants to use this as a means of disregarding the merits of the situation and entirely abrogate the disposition which the grantor clearly intended to make of her property.

So far as the question of delivery is concerned, I think the record abundantly justifies the conclusion that it was the grantor's intention that the deed should be delivered to the grantee at the time of its execution, and that the disposition of the same was equal to actual manual delivery. I am not impressed at all with the defendant's theory that, if there has been an intermingling of funds which came to the grantor in her lifetime, in purchasing the property in question, therefore the plaintiffs in this case must suffer in consequence of this circumstance. It ill becomes the defendants to attempt to sustain their position or to deprive adverse parties of equitabel relief by making a claim now as to which, with full knowledge, they were entirely silent during all the years that the grantor was alive and during which the same condition prevailed as to the title of the Tekonsha property.

A decree may therefore be taken by the plaintiffs correcting the deed involved in this case, and costs may be taxed in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendants. In follows from what has been said heretofore that the relief sought in the defendants' cross-bill is denied.

Argued before WIEST, C. J., and FELLOWS, McDONALD, CLARK, BIRD, SHARPE, MOORE, and STEERE, JJ. L. F. Humphrey, of Coldwater, and William E. Ware, of Battle Creek, for appellants.

E. R. Loud, of Albion, and Burrett Hamilton, of Battle Creek, for appellees.

WIEST, C. J.

The bill herein was filed to reform a deed, it being claimed that Fidelia Bliss, the mother of Jessie Blanchard, and now deceased, intended to convey to plaintiffs four lots in the village of Tekonsha, but by mistake of the scrivener the deed as executed covered but two of the lots.

Defendants, who are heirs at law of the grantor, claimed that the lots were purchased by Mrs. Bliss with money received from insurance upon a farmhouse, in which property she only had a life estate, and such insurance constituted a trust fund for their benefit as remaindermen, and therefore not only the lots conveyed to plaintiff, but alos the lots sought to be brought within the conveyance, belong to them as remaindermen. It is also claimed there was no valid delivery of the deed, and if there was, there can be no reformation decreed, because the deed was a voluntary one.

The circuit judge entered a decree granting reformation of the deed.

All authorities hold that a life tenant has an insurable interest. The authorities are not in harmony upon the extent to which such insurance may be taken out by the life tenant, some holding it cannot go beyond the interest of the life tenant, and others that it may go to the full value of the property. If there is no obligation to insure for the benefit of remaindermen, either in the instrument creating the tenancy or under agreement with the remaindermen, then the life tenant may be the full beneficiary. By the great weight of authority insurance received by the life tenant under his own permitted contract is not impressed with any trust for the benefit of remaindermen, but wholly belongs to the life tenant.

The observation in Cameron's Estate, 158 Mich. 174, 122 N. W. 564, that Green v. Green, 50 S. C. 514, 27 S. E. 952,62 Am. St. Rep. 846, is a well-considered case has not committed this court to the South Carolina doctrine that:

‘Insurance money collected by a life tenant on a total loss by fire should be used in rebuilding, or should go to the remaindermen, reserving the interest for life of life tenant for him.’

The Cameron Case went off on the finding that the insurance was taken out for the protection of the remaindermen. This finding raised a resulting or constructive trust. We have no such issue here, but only the bare legal question of whether insurance procured by a life tenant, intended to solely indemnify the life tenant, brings to the life tenant in case of a loss a fund impressed in all instances with a trust in favor of remaindermen. The Green Case is not in line with the great weight of authority. See 21 C. J. p. 954, Estates, § 92; 26 C. J. p. 34, Fire Insurance, § 17; Perry on Trusts, § 553; 17 R. C. L. p. 642; May on Insurance, § 448, note (a); Harrison v. Pepper, 166 Mass. 288, 44 N. E. 222,33 L. R. A. 239, 55 Am. St. Rep. 404.

As pointed out in Spalding v. Miller, 103 Ky. 405, 45 S. W. 462, 20 Ky. Law Rep. 131, the Green Case is based on...