Geddes v. Geddes, 4-86-2084

• Decision Date: 31 August 1988
• Docket Number: No. 4-86-2084,4-86-2084
• Citation: 530 So.2d 1011
• Parties: Gerald Kip GEDDES, Appellant/Cross Appellee, v. Gudrun Margrit GEDDES, Appellee/Cross Appellant.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1011

530 So.2d 1011

Gerald Kip GEDDES, Appellant/Cross Appellee, v. Gudrun Margrit GEDDES, Appellee/Cross Appellant.

No. 4-86-2084.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Fourth District.

Aug. 31, 1988.

Gunster Yoakley Criser & Stewart, P.A., and Jane Kreusler-Walsh and Larry Klein of Klein & Beranek, P.A., West Palm Beach, for appellant/cross appellee.

Neil B. Jagolinzer of Christiansen, Jacknin & Tuthill, West Palm Beach, for appellee/cross appellant.

ANSTEAD, Judge.

This is an appeal from a final judgment of dissolution of marriage. The appellant, Gerald Geddes, challenges the denial to him of a special equity in a certain parcel of real property, while his former wife, the appellee, Gudrun Geddes, cross appeals the refusal of the trial court to award her permanent alimony. We affirm on both issues.

BACKGROUND

The parties were married in December 1975 when Gudrun was 36 and Gerald 29, and separated in August 1984 when Gudrun was 45 and Gerald 38. They had no children. Both enjoy relative good health. During the marriage the parties enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle. They wintered in the Palm Beach area, summered in Montauk, N.Y., and had homes in both places. Gerald has never worked, while Gudrun was completely self-sufficient before marrying Gerald. Gerald's income before and during this marriage has been derived from trusts. In 1975, the first year of the marriage, his income was $59,000. This income increased to $97,000 in 1982 when his father died and he inherited his father's portion of his grandfather's trust. At the time of trial, there was evidence that Gerald had an income in excess of $15,000 per month and assets totalling $1 million.

Gudrun was born in Germany and lived there until she was 21 years old. Her educational background includes attendance at the University of Hamburg from age 14-18 where she took engineering courses but did not earn a degree, and accounting courses through a church exchange The trial court found that during the marriage the couple had acquired three parcels of real estate, all titled in their joint names: 1) Montauk residence valued at $230,000 and having a mortgage balance of $25,000; 2) 2814 North Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach, valued at $210,000 owned free and clear; and 3) 2900 North Flagler Drive, valued at $350,000 and having a mortgage of $195,000. Gerald contended at trial that he should be awarded all three properties because the funds used for the acquisition of the properties came from his family trust. The trial court denied Gerald's claim for a special equity in the three properties and found that the greater weight of the evidence demonstrated that he had intended to give his wife a one-half interest in the properties. The trial court awarded Gudrun exclusive use and possession of the 2900 North Flagler home for three years and required Gerald to pay the mortgage, real estate taxes, and insurance on the home for that period. The property was then to be sold and the proceeds equally divided after paying the mortgage and costs of sale. The court ordered that the Montauk and 2814 North Flagler home be sold immediately with the net proceeds equally divided between the parties. Gudrun was awarded the furnishings in the 2900 North Flagler Drive home and Gerald was awarded all the furnishings in his apartment, the Montauk home and the 2814 North Flagler Drive home. In addition, Gudrun was awarded $4,000 a month as rehabilitative alimony for 73 months, Gerald's half interest in their $2,000 1976 Audi, and attorney's fees which were determined to be $35,000.

program taught in German at St. Paul University in Minneapolis from 1961-1964. For ten years she worked as a bookkeeper. When she met Gerald in 1974, she was working as a butcher for a supermarket in Montauk, New York. After the parties moved to Palm Beach, she was employed as a bank teller. The evidence was disputed as to whether she quit that job of her own volition, or whether she did so at her husband's request. Other than her self-sufficiency and a mobile home in which the parties lived before their marriage, Gudrun came into the marriage without substantial assets.

GERALD'S SPECIAL EQUITY CLAIM

On appeal, Gerald challenges only the refusal of the trial court to award him a special equity in the Montauk home which, he claims, was purchased before the marriage with funds from outside the marriage (i.e., his inheritance). The supreme court in Ball v. Ball, 335 So.2d 5 (Fla.1976), stated that, "[I]n the absence of any showing by either spouse in the marriage dissolution proceeding as to why one should be awarded more than an equal proportion of real property held as tenants by the entireties, record title speaks for itself." Id. at 7 and 8. Either spouse can attempt to establish a "special equity" in the property on the basis of an extraordinary contribution toward its acquisition, either financially or through personal industry and service to the other party. That special equity can be avoided, however, by contradictory evidence that a gift was intended at the time of the transfer into joint ownership. "In using record title as the touchstone and requiring some evidentiary showing beyond that for an award other than an equal division, it becomes unnecessary to use judicially-created presumptions of any sort in these proceedings." Id. at 8.

In Marsh v. Marsh, 419 So.2d 629 (Fla.1982), the supreme court acknowledged the difficulty faced by a court in resolving disputed issues of fact relating to the donative intent of a grantor who titles property in joint names. In Marsh, the wife owned the marital home prior to the marriage and paid all the mortgage payments and property taxes. She married her husband in October 1978 and in December 1978 she transferred her home from her sole ownership to that of a tenancy by the entirety with her husband. Two months later the couple filed for dissolution. At trial, the wife alleged that the property had been transferred solely to provide a home for her children from a previous marriage and should have been transferred back to her in the event of divorce. Predictably, her husband claimed that the transfer was a gift. When, as here, the grantor's intent is to be determined from the conflicting testimony of the parties, it is the responsibility of the trial court to evaluate the weight and credibility of that testimony and to arrive at a determination. [emphasis added]

The trial judge, finding direct conflict in the couple's testimony found for the husband and ordered partition and sale of the home. The district court applying Ball reversed the trial court's holding that the record lacked credible evidence to support the trial court's ruling that the wife had intended a gift. The supreme court in turn quashed the decision of the district court as being an improper substitution of its opinion for that of the trial court and reinstated the trial court's decision denying the wife a special equity. The court noted that when the intent of the grantor is included within the deed or some other contemporaneous document, the problem of proof is not as severe as when the evidence of intent comes from the testimony of the litigants and their supporting witnesses. Under the latter situation, the testimony is subject to obvious bias and the witnesses' credibility is naturally in question. The court concluded:

Marsh, at 630.

While conceding that the the Montauk residence was titled in the parties' joint names, Gerald claims that he jointly titled the property solely for estate purposes, and that he had not intended to create a vested interest in his wife. The deeds in evidence have no reservations or limitations upon them to indicate that the transfer was only to take place in the event of Gerald's death, and except for his assertion at trial, there was no testimony or evidence to support Gerald's claim that he had been motivated to jointly title the property for estate purposes only.

The couple lived together in Gudrun's mobile home a year before marrying in December 1975. Gudrun testified that Gerald was unhappy living in her mobile home because it was small and he didn't like all the people around him. Together they found the Montauk property. In October 1975, Gerald paid the $50,000 down payment on the property with his inheritance and took out a $30,000 mortgage. In that same month, he took out a construction loan. The parties married in December 1975 and the house was completed in the Spring of 1976. Upon completion of the house, Gerald converted the construction loan into a regular mortgage and, initially, both the mortgage and the note were in his name individually. However, just a couple of months later, in July 1976, Gerald titled the property in their joint names. Although he testified that he did it only for probate purposes, he denied ever having told Gudrun or anyone else that this was his motivation.

Gudrun questions the credibility of Gerald's testimony that he had titled the property in joint names only for probate purposes. Gudrun testified that Gerald referred to the properties as theirs and never indicated to her that any of the properties were to be his individually. She observes that Gerald is the beneficiary of several trusts and, therefore, he would have been aware of the option of utilizing a trust procedure to title the real estate, if, in fact, he wanted Gudrun to have an interest in the property only upon his death. Indeed, during the marriage, Gerald created a trust for her benefit funded by money he had inherited from his father. In addition, it is undisputed that Gudrun performed substantial physical work upon the Montauk residence along with all the other properties the couple owned. For example, she testified that at the Montauk residence, she cut down and removed trees, installed parquet floors, built a 15' bar, installed cement tiles for a 300' walkway to the pool and lined it with gravel and railroad ties, carried several...