Eberhart v. National Citizens Bank of Mankato
| Decision Date | 15 July 1927 |
| Docket Number | 26,109 |
| Citation | 214 N.W. 793,172 Minn. 200 |
| Parties | NELLIE L. EBERHART v. NATIONAL CITIZENS BANK OF MANKATO |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Defendant appealed from an order of the district court for Blue Earth county, Comstock, J., denying its motion for a new trial. Affirmed.
Under facts of case creditors cannot claim loss of homestead rights in farm operated by joint tenants.
1. Two brothers lived on and operated jointly 80 acres of farm land which they had acquired as joint tenants by conveyance from their parents. Each of them had homestead rights therein. After a dissolution of the partnership, if any, and the death of one of the brothers, it cannot be claimed, on behalf of creditors of the partnership, that the farm had ceased to be a homestead because its use had been devoted to partnership purposes, the mere fact that the wife of the deceased partner had never joined in a conveyance of the land to the partnership or for its benefit being alone enough, under our statute (G.S. 1923, § 8340), to prevent that result.
Finding sustained that decedent had not abandoned his homestead.
2. Evidence on the issue as to whether before his death the deceased brother had abandoned the farm as a homestead considered not to permit a reversal of a finding against abandonment.
Homesteads 29 C.J. p. 807 n. 78; p. 851 n. 21; p. 885 n. 49; p. 965 n. 44.
See note in 28 L.R.A. 105; 13 R.C.L. 574; 6 R.C.L. Supp. 767.
H.L. & J. W. Schmitt and W. A. Doerr, for appellant.
Thomas Hughes, E. Raymond Hughes, and C. J. Laurisch, for respondent.
Appeal by National Citizens Bank of Mankato, a creditor of the estate of Edward Eberhart, deceased, from an order denying its motion for amended findings or a new trial, after a decision below reversing an order of the probate court which in effect refused to set aside a homestead as prayed for by Nellie L. Eberhart, the widow of the deceased.
The homestead is claimed in an undivided half of 80 acres of farm land. The cotenancy does not prevent the existence of homestead rights. Kaser v. Haas, 27 Minn. 406, 7 N.W. 824. See also Gilbert v. Case, 136 Minn. 257, 161 N.W. 515. The title at the time of his death was in Edward Eberhart and his brother George. In 1922 and after the death of Edward, bankruptcy proceedings were commenced against George. His creditors sought to reach his interest in the land because of a partnership supposed to have existed between himself and Edward. George's claim of homestead was sustained in Citizens L. & T. Co. v. Eberhart, 298 F. 291. Appellant, as a creditor of Edward, now seeks to accomplish what the creditors of George failed to accomplish. It claims not only that the farm had become partnership property but also that Edward had abandoned the place as his homestead. We consider these claims in their order.
1. The farm was acquired by the father of George and Edward something over 50 years ago. Both the boys contributed their labor, after their age permitted, to its operation. In 1905 their parents conveyed the land to them as cotenants, but subject to a life estate reserved to the grantors and the survivor of them. After the father's death, the mother assumed the farm management. When she passed away, her two sons continued the farming operations on their own behalf, if not as a partnership then as a joint adventure, each contributing his labor and being entitled to half the proceeds. Edward was the first to marry, but George followed his example about a year later. After that marriage, each family occupied separate portions of the one farmhouse, but the two family establishments were kept separate. Each owned not only a half interest in the farm, but a similar interest in stock, machinery, and produce. In a fashion characteristic of such arrangements between brothers, no formal settlements were made and there was but slight effort at accounting. Bank deposits were made and checks drawn in their joint names. They ventured into swine husbandry on quite an extensive scale, but with disastrous results. That business was conducted in the name of Eberhart Brothers.
Briefly that is the story upon which the argument of a partnership is predicated. We agree with the circuit court of appeals of the eighth circuit that as to the land no partnership existed. It It should not follow, it being so plain in the absence of a partnership that the homestead rights of each brother would have remained, that their devotion of the use of the farm to partnership purpose would deprive them and their families of...
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