Eddy v. Montagano

• Decision Date: 23 December 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–P–1865.,12–P–1865.
• Citation: 999 N.E.2d 503 (Table),84 Mass.App.Ct. 1126
• Parties: Robert EDDY v. Marlene P. MONTAGANO & another.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

84 Mass.App.Ct. 1126
999 N.E.2d 503 (Table)

Robert EDDY
v.
Marlene P. MONTAGANO & another.¹

No. 12–P–1865.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts.

Dec. 23, 2013.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 1:28

The defendants in this case, Marlene P. Montagano and her sister Marilyn E. Gardner, filed this appeal from a judgment entered in the Superior Court declaring that a certain parcel of real property held in the names of Montagano and Gardner as joint tenants is subject to a resulting trust in favor of the plaintiff, Robert Eddy, to reflect a fifty percent interest in the ownership of the property, and ordering the defendants to convey a fifty percent interest in the property by deed to the plaintiff and to take such actions as necessary to obtain approval from any mortgagee for this conveyance. The judge also ordered Montagano and Gardner to pay the plaintiff fifty percent of monies they received as a result of a 2004 refinancing of the property, with interest. In or around 1997, while Eddy was going through a divorce, he began a romantic relationship with Montagano. The trial judge found that Eddy offered to finance the purchase of a house that he would share with Montagano, but Eddy told Montagano that because he was in the midst of a divorce he did not want the asset listed in his name. The defendants argue that the judge erred in finding that the parties' actions created a resulting trust.

To determine whether a resulting trust is created, courts must look to the intent of the parties at the time of the purchase of the property. See Saulnier v. Saulnier, 328 Mass. 238, 240 (1952) (“it is settled that a resulting trust must arise if at all at the time of the conveyance to the alleged trustee”); Lewis v. Mills, 32 Mass.App.Ct. 660, 664 (1992) (“We focus on the plan, not on the problems encountered in carrying out the plan. A resulting trust can only ‘arise’ ... if from the outset the person who ‘supplies the purchase price intends that the property bought shall inure to his own benefit ..., and that the conveyance is taken in the name of another for some incidental reason’ “ [quoting from Simmons v. Smith, 20 Mass.App.Ct. 775, 778 (1985) ] ). The...