Campanella v. Campanella., 1853.

• Decision Date: 11 August 1949
• Docket Number: No. 1853.,1853.
• Citation: 68 A.2d 85
• Parties: CAMPANELLA v. CAMPANELLA.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

68 A.2d 85

CAMPANELLA

v.CAMPANELLA.

No. 1853.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Aug. 11, 1949.

Appeal from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Patrick P. Curran, Judge.

Suit by Armando Campanella against Ida Campanella for partition of realty, wherein respondent filed an answer in the nature of a cross bill. From an adverse decree, complainant appeals.

Appeal sustained, decree reversed, and cause remanded for further proceedings.

Knauer & Knauer, Kirshenbaum & Kirshenbaum, Providence, for complainant.

Joseph Mainelli, Providence, for respondent.

CAPOTOSTO, Justice.

This is a bill of complaint under General Laws 1938, chapter 586, § 2, for partition of certain real estate in the city of Providence. The respondent filed an answer in the nature of a cross bill praying that the complaint be declared a trustee of his title, right and interest in said real estate in favor of the respondent. Therefore the cause, which was heard in the superior court on bill, answer, replication and proof, though nominally for partition is in reality controlled by the law of trusts. The complainant has appealed to this court from a decree granting the prayer of the answer in the nature of a cross bill.

The parties are husband and wife. They were married September 23, 1920 and at the time of trial they had three children, Archie, 26, Armando, Jr., 21, and Dorothy, 19 years of age respectively. The husband was a mechanic and sign painter and his wife worked in factories and mills. She took charge of the family earnings and all expenditures were made with money from a common fund. What amount each person, including the two boys in later years, contributed weekly or from time to time to such a fund is the subject of highly conflicting evidence. In 1943 the elder Campanellas bought a home on Dora street in the city of Providence for $4,250, paying $1,500 in cash and the balance by mortgage. The deed, dated April 22, 1943, is to Armando Campanella and wife Ida Campanella ‘as Joint Tenants and not as Tenants in Common.’ This deed contains no condition upon which the parties, as between themselves, shall hold the particular estate thereby created.

When this cause was on hearing the parties were involved in divorce proceedings brought by the wife. Repeated reference to matters more properly connected with those proceedings tended to obscure the real issue in the instant cause, which issue fundamentally was to determine whether the deed expressed the real intent and purpose of the grantees therein named, as between themselves, at the time of the transaction in 1943. The two main grounds relied upon by the respondent in resisting partition were: first, that her own accumulated earnings alone were used in buying the house; and, secondly, that she allowed the deed to run to herself and husband as joint tenants on the express condition that he would stay at home more that he had done in the past.

In view of respondent's contentions we have carefully examined the evidence and will quote therefrom with some liberality in the course of our opinion. It would serve no useful purpose, however, to refer specifically to the evidence relating to the contributions to the family fund by the complainant and the respondent, as their respective testimony covers a long period of years and consists mainly of affirmations and denials as to how much each contributed to that fund, making it impossible to ascertain whose earnings it actually represented. The complainant in substance testified that during his whole married life he turned over practically his entire pay to his wife with the understanding that she was to administer the fund created by pooling the earnings of all members of the family for household expenses, personal needs, education of the children and savings. In contradiction of that testimony the respondent testified that up to about 1942 the complainant never gave her more than $8 or $10 a week; that with this money and other sums that she received from her father, brother and the boys, when they began to work, she paid all household and other family expenses, including the purchase of an automobile; and that, although the respondent had given her $30 a week for about two years next preceding 1943, all savings which she had deposited in a bank in her own name or kept in the house represented an accumulation of her earnings alone.

At the time of the hearing the father was dead and the brother did not testify. The only other witness for the respondent was her son Archie, but his testimony was mainly of a negative character, that is, that he did not see his father give any money to his mother. One cannot read all the evidence on the point under consideration without entertaining a strong feeling that the testimony of the complainant and the respondent is exaggerated, leaving to speculation whose earnings actually went to make up the family savings.

Turning to the evidence concerning the purchase of the property the complainant testified that family relations at that time were harmonious; that he and his wife went to see the house together and that when they decided to buy it he gave a binder of $50 in the presence of his wife from his money to the seller, who gave a receipt in complainant's name; and that with her knowledge and consent he made all arrangements for the mortgage and for the preparation of the deed by the title company. When the representative of the title company saw that the receipt was in complainant's name, he asked him in whose name or names the deed was to be drawn, and according to his testimony the latter answered that the deed was to be to him and his wife as joint tenants. He further testified that on the day set for completing the transaction he met the wife at the title company and she then made no objection to the form of the deed and also without objection signed the mortgage and note based upon that deed.

The respondent on the...