Flowers v. Stanley

• Decision Date: 15 October 1957
• Docket Number: No. 37389,37389
• Citation: 316 P.2d 840,1957 OK 237
• Parties: Oscar C. FLOWERS and Eloise Flowers, Plaintiffs in Error, v. Era I. Cale STANLEY, Norman Clyde Cale, Leland Victor Cale and Donneita Elizabeth Cale Hampton, Defendants in Error.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 840

316 P.2d 840

1957 OK 237

Oscar C. FLOWERS and Eloise Flowers, Plaintiffs in Error, v. Era I. Cale STANLEY, Norman Clyde Cale, Leland Victor Cale and Donneita Elizabeth Cale Hampton, Defendants in Error.

No. 37389.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Oct. 15, 1957.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. In an equity proceeding, the trial judge may, in his discretion, impanel a jury and submit to it distinct questions of fact for its advice; but he should not in such cases submit the case to a jury for a general verdict for the plaintiff or the defendant. Such a submission is erroneous; but a case should not be reversed for such an error, where it affirmatively appears that, notwithstanding the verdict of the jury, the trial judge reviewed the evidence and reached the same conciusion as the jury.

2. The general rule governing the defenses of limitations and laches in actions seeking reformation of instruments allegedly altered as the result of fraud or mistake, is that if plaintiff, without any fault or neglect on his part, is ignorant of the alteration, the period of limitations, or laches, starts when the alteration is, or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, would have been discovered.

3. The question of when the alteration was, or should, have been discovered, under the above rule, is usually to be determined from the facts and circumstances of the particular case; and, where these are such that reasonable men might reach conflicting opinions thereon, the issue is a question for determination by the trier of facts.

4. Where a case of equitable cognizance is tried by the court with the aid of a jury, siting in an advisory capacity, and the court, though incorporating the jury's verdict therein, renders judgment in accord with, and after making, its own findings of fact and conclusions of law, said judgment will not be set aside of appeal, unless it is clearly against the weight of the evidence.

5. In the present case, after examination of the evidence, the judgment is held not clearly against the weight of the evidence.

Appeal from the District Court of Texas County, C. R. Board, Judge.

Action by plaintiffs for reformation of the mineral reservation in a deed previously delivered to one of the defendants. After judgment for plaintiffs, defendants appealed. Affirmed.

Hughes, Ogden & Ogden, Guymon, for plaintiffs in error.

King & Foster, Guymon, for defendants in error.

BLACKBIRD, Justice.

This case involves the right of defendants in error, who, as grantors, executed a deed dated August 11th, 1944, conveying to one of the plaintiffs in error, Oscar C. Flowers, two half sections of land, and reserving unto themselves an undivided one-half interest in the minerals under said land, to have the reserving part of said deed reformed. The material facts are not in serious dispute and are substantially as hereinafter related.

The defendant in error, Mrs. Era I. Cale Stanley is the remarried widow, and the other defendants in error are the surviving adult children, of Era I. Cale, who died previous to 1935, in Texas County, Oklahoma, where the land is situated. In said year, said widow and children, hereinafter referred to collectively as plaintiffs, moved from there to San Bernardino, California. In 1939, Mrs. Stanley, then Cale, discovered that said land was in danger of being sold for delinquent taxes, and, on a trip back to Oklahoma, was successful in selling an agricultural lease on it to one Oscar C. Flowers, a lawyer and farmer-stockman of Perryton, Texas, for a total rental amounting to more than enough to pay the taxes and save the land from delinquent tax sale. In December, 1943, just before this five-year agricultural lease expired, Flowers wrote Mrs. Stanley, at San Bernardino, asking her if she would be interested in selling the land to him. About three months later, Mrs. Stanley made another trip back to Oklahoma, and, while in Texas County, entered into negotiations with Flowers to sell him the land, less one-half of the minerals, for a consideration of $8,000, contingent upon the children in California approving, and joining with her, in the conveyance of their undivided interests.

Previously, one of the Cale children had died subsequent to his father's death, and two of the other three had married. Consequently, Mrs. Stanley's agreement with Mr. Flowers contemplated that court proceedings would be had in order to place of record, ownership of the entire fee simple title to the land in Mrs. Stanley and her one surviving daughter and two sons. Before she left Guymon, the Texas County Seat, to return to California, she engaged Attorney L of that city to handle said proceedings, in the event the aforesaid sale proposal met the children's approval. Accordingly, on her return to California, Mrs. Stanley took with her the original and one copy of a contract of sale, dated March 18, 1944, naming Flowers as party of the second part, or purchaser, and Mrs. Stanley and her three children and their two spouses, as parties of the first part, and purporting to embody, is a general way, the essential terms of the oral agreement she and Flowers had entered into. This contract, according to the writing introduced in evidence as Mrs. Stanley's copy thereof, specifically provided that in the deed to be executed and delivered under the terms thereof, one-half of the 'minerals and mineral rights under said land' was to be retained by parties of the first part. When the original of the contract had been executed by all the heirs in California, Mrs. Stanley mailed it to Attorney L at Guymon, in May, 1944. About three months later, Attorney L completed the court action instituted to perfect the title as aforesaid, and, at nearly the same time, said vendors and their spouses, executed (in the two California counties of their respective residences) the warranty deed that is the subject of this action. According to the undisputed testimony, when this deed was received by Mrs. Stanley for her and the other grantors' execution, it purported to reserve to said grantors, all, instead of only one-half, of the minerals under said land. Noticing that this did not conform to the contract with Mr. Flowers, Mrs. Stanley and her two sons conveyed this information to Mrs. Essie Bowerman, the San Bernardino Notary Public, before whom some of the grantors appeared to acknowledge their signatures, and had her, on her typewriter, type into the deed, by way of interlineation, the words 'one-half of' so that, as thus corrected, the reserving provision read, in part, exactly as follows: 'Grantors, (naming them) * * * hereby expressly reserve to themselves * * * one-half of all of the oil, gas, and minerals * * * and mineral rights in, to and under the above described lands * * *'. After making said change, and after all of the grantors had signed and acknowledged the deed, the afore-named Notary caused them to indicate their authorization of said correction by writing their respective initials opposite same on the deed's right hand margin. An an additional precautionary measure, she typed at the bottom of the deed, over her signature and seal, the following: 'October 14, 1944, the correction 'one-half of' all of the oil, gas, etc. was made, initialed, subscribed and sworn to before me.' Thereafter, Mrs. Stanley, apparently in accord with a previous request by Attorney L, forwarded said deed, as corrected, to the City National Bank of Guymon; and, in November, 1944, a few days after the deed was recorded in October, she received from said Bank checks for herself and children in payment of the agreed consideration for the land.

In 1950, Mrs. Stanley's last husband died and his sister, a Mrs. Cook, also of Texas County, Oklahoma, while on a trip to San Bernardino to attend the decedent's funeral on November 13th, of that year, stated in a conversation with Mrs. Stanley, in substance, that Mr. Flowers had told her that the reservation of minerals in the above-described deed was for a term of only 20 years. Mrs. Stanley, who testified that she was then in a 'very bad' state of health and 'very disturbed', further testified that she 'didn't think much about * * * (Mrs. Cook's statement) until probably three weeks later' and then she 'went and got' the copy of the contract with Flowers that she had kept 'and read it and it didn't state for a period of twenty years * * *'. Mrs. Stanley further testified, in substance, that she made no further investigation of the matter at the time. In 1954, as a result of an oil well having been recently drilled on the land, Mrs. Stanley began to receive offers to buy the family's interest in the mineral rights thereunder, and she made a trip back to Guymon and vicinity. At least one offer of $200 per acre was communicated to her from Perryton, Texas, where Mr. Flowers lived. After its being indicated to her from expressions from at least one prospective buyer that hers and the children's title might have to be perfected, and upon examining the deed that had been recorded, and having a Guymon lawyer examine the public record thereof, Mrs. Stanley discovered that, in addition to the hereinbefore described interlineation that had been made in California, there had been typed on the deed an additional interlineation which had the effect of placing a 20-year limitation of the duration of the reservation of minerals therein contained.

Within a short time thereafter, and specifically on October 13th, 1954, Mrs. Stanley and her sons and daughter commenced the present action against Mr. Flowers and his wife to obtain reformation of the above-described deed by striking the second aforesaid interlineation therefrom, and to quiet their title to an undivided one-half interest in and to the mineral rights under the involved two half-sections, or 640 acres, of land.

In their answer and cross petition, Flowers and his wife, hereinafter collectively referred to as defendants, specifically denied, in substance, that...