Finkle v. Finkle, 47240.

• Decision Date: 15 June 1948
• Docket Number: No. 47240.,47240.
• Parties: FINKLE v. FINKLE.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

239 Iowa 783
32 N.W.2d 807

FINKLE
v.
FINKLE.

No. 47240.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 15, 1948.

Appeal from District Court, Marshall County; B. O. Tankersley, Judge.

Claim against estate for services rendered decedent, tried to the court and allowed in part. The executor appeals.

Affirmed.

[32 N.W.2d 808]

Haupert & Robertson, of Marshalltown, for appellant.

J. L. Mowry and M. C. Farber, both of Marshalltown, for appellee.

OLIVER, Justice.

The claim covers the period from 1925 to decedent's death in 1944. Decedent and claimant were second cousins. Decedent had lost a leg and was partially incapacitated. He owned nineteen rental houses, many lots, some sold on installment contracts, and an improved business corner, all in Marshalltown. He also owned a house in Iowa Falls and a farm in Illinois. Between 1942 and 1944 he purchased four additional rental houses in Marshalltown.

Twenty-six witnesses for claimant testified to the nature, extent and value of his services rendered decedent during the twenty year period, in renting houses, collecting rents, making repairs, cleaning, scrubbing and fumigating vacant houses, calcimining walls, repairing and fitting screens and screen doors, repairing, burning out and cleaning chimneys, removing ashes and debris, hauling materials to workers, shoveling snow, caring for lawns, chauffeuring decedent in claimant's car and in decedent's car, in Marshalltown and on trips to various places in Iowa and to Illinois, assisting decedent with his accounts and book work, locating, inspecting and arranging for and handling the purchase of houses by decedent, and other services connected with the operation and maintenance of decedent's properties. Various check stubs and receipt stubs in claimant's handwriting and checks to others written by claimant and signed by decedent, were in evidence. There was evidence of frequent telephone calls by decedent to claimant, at claimant's home and elsewhere, in which directions were given or messages left for claimant's attention to these matters; that decedent referred inquiries and complaints to claimant for attention, saying, ‘Call on Edgar’ (claimant). ‘If there is anything you need there, you tell Edgar’. ‘Edgar did his chore work, he had him around to do his work’, and directing tenants to pay rent to claimant and that decedent frequently said to claimant after the completion of some task. ‘Thanks until you are better paid.’

The claim was for $7,400. The trial court found claimant, at decedent's...