Boynton v. Miller

• Decision Date: 14 June 1898
• Citation: 46 S.W. 754,144 Mo. 681
• Parties: BOYNTON et al. v. MILLER et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

46 S.W. 754

144 Mo. 681

BOYNTON et al. v. MILLER et al.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

June 14, 1898.

TRUSTS — DECLARATIONS — EVIDENCE — HUSBAND AND WIFE — TITLE TO LAND — LIMITATIONS.

1. After the death of a husband, the wife received the proceeds of land sold prior to his death, which was not inventoried or divided as a part of his estate, but which she invested in other land. Held, that she held the property so purchased in trust for herself and her heirs, and that it did not pass by marriage to her second husband.

2. Declarations of a husband, while in the possession of land, that it belonged to his wife, are original evidence, and competent as against him and his privies.

3. Where a husband allows his wife to buy, sell, and trade with her personal property, he thereby waives whatever marital rights he may have had with regard to it.

4. Where land is purchased by a wife with the unadministered proceeds of a former husband's estate, and the legal title is taken in the name of her second husband without her knowledge, such property belongs to the wife and her heirs; nor can the husband, as against them, claim compensation for improvements made thereon.

5. A husband held title to land purchased with the money of his wife, on which both lived together, and he thereafter declared that the land belonged to her. Held, that he did not claim adversely to his wife or her heirs.

Appeal from circuit court, Sullivan county; W. W. Rucker, Judge.

Proceeding by Elizabeth K. Boynton and another against Mary Miller and another to devest defendants of the title to certain real estate. From a decree in favor of plaintiffs, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

A. W. Mullins, for appellants. John P. Butler and John Swallow, for respondents.

SHERWOOD, J.

This proceeding in equity was instituted by plaintiffs to devest out of defendants the title to a certain improved farm of 160 acres. The result of the proceeding was the granting of the prayer of the petition. The case turns on the point as to what party, whether John Miller or his first wife, furnished the money which bought the litigated land. She had been a Mrs. Flanders, and John Miller a hired hand on the farm during her husband's lifetime. About three years after the death of Flanders, she, then being about 40, led John Miller to the altar, he then being about 23. This was in 1846 as to date, and Ohio as to state. Of the children born of the marriage of Jane F. Sebring and John M. Flanders, all died in infancy, except Elizabeth Flanders, who subsequently became the wife of Sumner Boynton, and is now one of the plaintiffs herein, and Cora V., the only surviving child of the marriage between Jane F. Sebring Flanders Miller and John Miller, afterwards married Fred Quint, and she, being insane, appears as one of plaintiffs through him as her guardian. About 1852, Elizabeth Flanders and Sumner Boynton became husband and wife, and removed to a point near Greencastle, Sullivan county. Mrs. Miller, it appears, was a thrifty, money-saving, businesslike woman. She received from her first husband's estate $491.39, and to each of the three surviving children there was also distributed the sum of $163.792/3 of the personal estate appraised. There was also the sum of $1,200 which came into her hands, this sum being the product of the sale of a tract which John M. Flanders, her first husband, sold about a year before to one Gunn. This sum was not inventoried by her nor her co-administrator, but remained in her possession after close of the administration of her first husband's estate. With the aggregated shares of the three surviving children she bought the Fisher place, a little farm of 60 acres, for the children, situate on Dogwood Ridge, and on this the family lived. Subsequently to this purchase Mrs. Miller bought, sold, and exchanged property, buying in her own name, and selling or exchanging in the same way, going at one time to Massac county, Ill., with a relative, and buying a piece of land there. Miller, it seems, at that time, had no means of his own; and in 1849, with means furnished him by his wife, he went to California, and subsequently twice returned to Missouri and California, and in 1858 or 1859 returned to the latter state for the last time. In 1854, John and Jane Flanders Miller, who had become the joint purchasers of the Fisher place at a sale made by the curator of the children, sold that place for...