Brooks v. Gillow
| Decision Date | 14 April 1958 |
| Docket Number | 4,Nos. 3,s. 3 |
| Citation | 89 N.W.2d 457,352 Mich. 189 |
| Parties | Gladys BROOKS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Everett GILLOW, Nellie Reynolds, Marian Gardner, David Gillow, and D. Neil Reid, Administrator with the Will Annexed of the Estate of Edna M. Gillow, Deceased, Defendants and Appellees. Mary Ann DOROW, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Everett GILLOW, Nellie Reynolds, Marian Gardner, David Gillow, and D. Neil Reid, Administrator with the Will Annexed of the Estate of Edna M. Gillow, Deceased, Defendants and Appellees. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
David F. Fitzgerald, Detroit, for appellants Gladys Brooks and Mary Ann Dorow.
Butzel, Eaman, Long, Gust & Kennedy, Detroit, for appellees Everett Gillow and Nellie Reynolds.
Reid & Gilmore, Detroit, for appellees Marian Gardner, David Gillow, and D. Neil Reid, Administrator w/w/a of Estate of Edna M. Gillow, Deceased.
Before the Entire Bench.
These 2 cases were consolidated for trial in the court below, tried together and disposed of together despite the fact that a number of issues in each case are different and the theory of plaintiff in each case is different. I believe that it is necessary to understand the particular questions involved to make separate statements of fact, and will therefore treat the case of Brooks v. Gillow et al. first and follow with Dorow v. Gillow et al.
In the Brooks case the plaintiff and appellant is a niece of Edna M. Gillow, deceased. It is her claim that the deceased several weeks prior to her death made a valid gift inter vivos to her of deceased's vendor's interest in a certain land contract. The defendants and appellees, with the exception of Mr. Reid, are stepchildren of the deceased and children of Mrs. Gillow's husband, who predeceased her. Mr. Reid is the duly appointed and acting administrator of the decedent's estate. Under the decedent's will, duly admitted to probate, her estate, including the land contract in question, was subject to distribution to the defendants and appellees as devisees and legatees of the decedent.
Plaintiff commenced her chancery action to enjoin distribution as it related to the land contract and asked for a decree that the land contract belonged to plaintiff by reason of a gift inter vivos.
Plaintiff claims that on or about September 11, 1953, a few days prior to deceased's entering the hospital for treatment of an incurable disease, said deceased, in the presence of a witness who testified in this case, gave said contract, in which she had a vendor's interest, to plaintiff; that plaintiff accepted the contract and kept it in her possession, making two monthly collections of the payments thereunder. Plaintiff further contends that on or about November 28, 1953, D. Neil Reid, who had been appointed special guardian of Mrs. Gillow, demanded of plaintiff the contract and the money collected thereon. Plaintiff then informed the special guardian of the gift of the deceased. However, plaintiff was advised by the special guardian, who incidentally is an attorney, that she could not claim it as a gift without a written assignment, whereupon plaintiff, relying upon his statement, delivered the contract and the payments, less some expenses from the payments she had made on behalf of deceased to D. Neil Reid. Subsequently Mrs. Gillow died and Mr. Reid was appointed administrator of deceased's estate.
Plaintiff claims that the delivery of the land contract to her, of which deceased was the vendor, together with her acceptance thereof, constituted a gift inter vivos, the interest of the vendor being personal property and therefore the proper subject of such a gift.
Defendants contend that a vendor's interest in a land contract is an estate or interest in lands and is therefore subject to the statute of frauds; that any transfer of said interest must be in writing and subscribed by the party assigning it.
Plaintiff contends that upon the execution of the land contract, the interest of Edna M. Gillow as vendor thereunder was converted to personalty, under the doctrine of equitable conversion, and that as long as the contract was in force, the said vendor's interest was considered as personalty and was no longer subject to the statute of frauds, and was subject to gift inter vivos as personalty.
The doctrine of equitable conversion has been followed in the State of Michigan, and our Court has recognized it in a number of cases and has held the interest of a vendor in a land contract to be personalty. In Detroit & Security Trust Co. v. Kramer, 247 Mich. 468, on page 470, 226 N.W. 234, the Court says:
In a number of other cases the Court has held the interest of a vendor in a land contract to be personalty. It is upon these authorities that plaintiff relies in this instance.
To hold that a vendor's interest under a land contract is personalty to the extent that it may be transferred by parol would be to open the door to fraud. It would jeopardize the purposes of our recording statutes and make it impossible for one to be sure where the actual ownership of a parcel of land, sold in this fashion, actually existed. As this Court said in Cramer v. Ballard, 315 Mich. 496, 24 N.W.2d 80:
'The statute of frauds exists in the law for the purpose of preventing fraud or the opportunity for fraud, * * *.' (Syllabus 2.)
In the case of Union Guardian Trust Co. v. Rood, 261 Mich. 188, 246 N.W. 74, Justice North, when faced with the question of: Can a mortgagor's title in fee to real estate which he has sold on a land contract be foreclosed by the mortgagee and title to the real estate (subject to the outstanding land contract) be vested in a purchaser at a sale conducted under and in accordance with the collateral sales statute?, had this to say with reference to the equitable conversion doctrine in so far as it applied to a vendor's interest in a land contract being personalty (261 Mich. at pages 191, 192, 246 N.W. at page 75):
'If the doctrine of equitable conversion were to be applied as contended by appellant, it is obvious rather dire results would follow. For, notwithstanding the doctrine of equitable conversion, the record title to the land is in the vendor (mortgagor), not in the vendee. This title can be acquired by another only by voluntary conveyance or operation of law. It is too clear for argument that the collateral sales statute does not contain any provision by which title to real estate can be transferred or passed to a purchaser. No one has power incident to the conduct of such a sale to execute and deliver to the purchaser a deed. In this state title to land incident to foreclosure of a mortgage lien can be passed only by statutory foreclosure * * *, or by foreclosure in chancery * * *. Appellant's claim that his interest in the three parcels of land sold on contract is personal property is untenable because in so asserting an attempt is made to apply the doctrine of equitable conversion under circumstances and to conditions to which it is not applicable. Of this doctrine we have recently said:
Justice North in this same case further said (261 Mich. at page 193, 246 N.W. at page 75):
* * *'
A vendor's interest in a land contract so far partakes of an interest in real estate that the conveyance, transfer (including the gift) or assignment of such an interest under the statute of frauds must be in writing. It cannot, upon the facts before us, be the subject of an oral gift inter vivos.
The decree of the circuit court dismissing plaintiff's bill of complaint is affirmed, with costs in the premises in favor of defendants.
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... ... contract, i.e., the right to receive payment, which ... constitutes personalty. Brooks v Gillow , 352 Mich ... 189, 193; 89 N.W.2d 457 (1958); Graves , 469 Mich. at ... 616-617. As explained in Graves , a vendor's ... ...
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...clearly contemplates the establishment of a trust. “[I]t requires no particular form of words to create a trust.” Brooks v. Gillow, 352 Mich. 189, 199, 89 N.W.2d 457 (1958). “ ‘A person need use no particular form of words to create a trust or to make himself a trustee. It is enough if, hav......
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