Feaster v. Kendall

• Decision Date: 13 April 1908
• Citation: 61 S.E. 200,80 S.C. 30
• Parties: FEASTER v. KENDALL et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

61 S.E. 200

80 S.C. 30

FEASTER v. KENDALL et al.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

April 13, 1908

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Richard County; R. Withers Memminger, Judge.

Action by J. G. Feaster against F. D. Kendall and others. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

John T Duncan, for appellant.

W. Boyd Evans and Hunter A. Gibbes, for respondents.

WOODS J.

The plaintiff alleges in his complaint an agreement with the defendant F. D. Kendall to buy "as partners with equal shares therein" several tracts of land of the aggregate area of 4,277 acres, the taking of titles in the name of the defendant F. D. Kendall, and the payment by the plaintiff of one-half of the purchase money. He asks the court to declare him to be the owner of one-half interest in the land, and that it be partitioned between himself and the defendants. The defendants by their answer deny the material allegations of the complaint. The cause was tried by Judge Memminger, who filed a decree in which he held the plaintiff had entirely failed to prove any equitable title to the land or resulting trust in his favor, but ordered an accounting between the plaintiff and the defendant F. D. Kendall as to the various transactions between them relating to the land. From this decree, the plaintiff appeals.

The rule of law is familiar that, to establish an equitable title or a resulting trust against one holding the legal title, the evidence must be clear and convincing. Catoe v Catoe, 32 S.C. 595, 10 S.E. 1078; McMillan v McMillan, 77 S.C. 511, 58 S.E. 431; Bell v Edwards, 78 S.C. 490, 59 S.E. 535. The evidence in this case is very far from clear and convincing. Indeed careful examination of the parol evidence and the numerous letters and other exhibits introduced has no other effect than to produce the impression that F. D. Kendall has received money and service from Feaster for which he has given no equivalent, but to leave the mind in a state of complete perplexity as to the relation of Feaster to the land, and as to the value of the service rendered and the amount of money paid by Feaster to Kendall. The testimony offered to prove an agreement that Feaster was to own one-half interest in the land and his payment of one-half of the purchase money is even more unsatisfactory than that held insufficient to support a similar claim in McMillan v McMillan, supra. An analysis of the evidence would serve...