Cochran v. Eason
| Decision Date | 15 February 1971 |
| Citation | 227 Ga. 316,180 S.E.2d 702 |
| Parties | Luther COCHRAN et al. v. Harold EASON at el. No 26224. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
The trial court did not err in approving, with exceptions and conditions, the family settlement agreement.
Holcomb & McDuff, Robert E. McDuff, Frank D. Holcomb, Marietta, for appellants.
Ingram, Flournoy & Downey, J. L. Gray, G. Conley Ingram, Marietta, Ferdinand Buckley, Atlanta, William E. Otwell, Austell, for appellees.
This appeal is from an order making a proposed family settlement agreement the judgment of the court, subject to certain exceptions and conditions imposed thereby The parties to the Agreement were the heirs at law of W. M. Eason, who died in 1928, and whose will was probated in 1929.
The proposed agreement grew out of a suit for equitable partition filed in the Superior Court of Cobb County in 1968 by Harold Eason and certain other heirs of W. M. Eason, against Mrs. E. M. (Pauline) Brown and other heirs of W. M. Eason, and also against Charles A. Eason and othr heirs of W. M. Eason. It is noe necessary to recite the allegations of the complaint. Its relief sought essentially the sale of certain described real property, in accordance with the will of W. M. Eason, and an accounting by his administrators.
Following the filing of other pleadings and the denial of certain motions, likewise not required to be stated here, the trial court set the case for trial.
However, in the meantime an order was entered which recited in material part that, 'It being made to appear to the court that the parties have heretofore authorized their respective attorneys to settle the issues in this family dispute extate case as provided in the attached agreement, and it now being represented to the court that one or more of the parties will not sign said agreement to effectuate the settlement * * *'; it then required the parties to show cause at a specific time and date 'why said agreement should not be made the final judgment of the court in this case.'
Upon such hearing, the trial court entered an order providing substantially as follows: that the settlement agreement be made the decree of the court subject to the following exceptions and conditions; (1) that the receivers not incur any obligation for real estate commissions except by prior approval of the court; (2) that notice of sale of the property be advertised in stated particulars; (3) that no sale thereof be approved except upon further hearing after notice; and (4) that the question of what, if any, administrator's commissions to be paid was to be determined by the court after further hearings.
1. Upon this appeal from that order, the appellants, who are Mrs. Brown and those comprising that group, take the position that since the proposed agreement was not signed by them there was no assent to it, that is, no meeting of the minds as to its essential terms; and therefore the agreement should not have been approved in the trial court's order.
In this connection, the appellants rely upon the following provision: '* * * and this agreement shall be binding on all the parties hereto, their heirs, successors and assigns when each of the parties hereto shall have signed one of the counterpart originals of this agreement.'
We cannot agree with appellants' position.
Even assuming that the foregoing language should ordinarily be construed to require such signatures in order to be binding, that was not necessary under the circumstances here.
It...
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...that oral contracts falling outside the purview of the Statute of Frauds 4 may be binding and enforceable. See Cochran v. Eason, 227 Ga. 316, 318(1), 180 S.E.2d 702 (1971) (holding that “[a]ssent to the terms of a contract may be given other than by signatures”); Taylor v. Taylor, 217 Ga. 2......
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