Conway v. Rock

• Decision Date: 09 July 1908
• Parties: HANORA CONWAY v. JOHANNA ROCK, BRIDGET DUFFY and LUCY COAKLEY ET AL., and Another Case Consolidated Therewith
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

117 N.W. 273

139 Iowa 162

HANORA CONWAY v. JOHANNA ROCK, BRIDGET DUFFY and LUCY COAKLEY ET AL., and Another Case Consolidated Therewith

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

July 9, 1908

Appeal from Iowa District Court.-- HON. R. P. HOWELL, Judge.

ON December 3, 1903, Hanora Murphy signed a deed conveying twenty-five acres of her eighty-five-acre farm to Hanora Conway, and another deed conveying the remaining sixty acres to Johanna Rock, Bridget Duffy, and W. M. Slater. The grantees were her daughters, except Slater, who was a grandson. These deeds were destroyed in February, 1904, and on the 11th day of August, 1905, Hanora Conway filed in court an application for the appointment of a guardian of her mother, and the temporary appointment was made five days later. On October 23, 1905, Mrs. Murphy executed a deed of the eighty-five acres to two of the grantees above named Mrs. Rock and Mrs. Duffy, and another daughter, Lucy Coakley and this was recorded June 5, 1906. Ten days prior to the recording trial on the above application was had, resulting in a finding that Mrs. Murphy was of unsound mind and the appointment of a permanent guardian. See Conway v Murphy, 135 Iowa 171. In this suit the grantees in the first deeds allege delivery, and pray that their title to the respective tracts be established and quieted in them, as against the grantees in the last deed; and the two suits therefor were consolidated. The answer denied the delivery of the deeds, and alleged the same were destroyed by Mrs Murphy, without delivery, with the consent and acquiescence of the grantees therein, and that, in any event, when the second deed was delivered, the grantees therein were without notice of the execution of the former deeds. Decree was entered as prayed, and defendants appeal.-- Affirmed.

Affirmed.

Dower & Murphy, for appellants.

R. W. Pugh, Thos. Stapleton, and M. J. Wade, for appellees.

OPINION

LADD, C. J.

The deed of twenty-five acres by Hanora Murphy to Hanora Conway as grantee, and that of the remaining sixty acres of her farm to H. W. Slater, Bridget Duffy, and Johanna Rock were signed and acknowledged December 3, 1903, and, if delivered, passed title to each tract immediately, regardless of whether the conveyances subsequently were destroyed. That the grantor obtained possession of them in February following and destroyed them can make no difference, for this is not shown to have been with the consent or acquiescence of the grantees. Even if Mrs. Conway at one time did express the purpose of destroying them, it was never executed. Besides the answer alleges destruction of the deeds before delivery, not afterwards.

So too, it is immaterial whether any consideration passed for the first deeds, for the grantor had the right to give the property away if she chose to do so; and, if the gift was complete, she retained no title to convey in the deed which she executed October 23, 1905, to Mrs. Rock, Mrs. Duffy, and Mrs. Coakley. The grantees in the last deed cannot be protected as innocent purchasers, unless they pleaded or proved that they paid a valuable consideration, and this they did not do. Sillyman v. King, 36 Iowa 207; Nolan v. Grant, 53 Iowa 392, 5 N.W. 513; Kibby v. Harsh, 61 Iowa 196, 16 N.W. 85; Fogg v. Holcomb,...