Grayson v. Grayson

• Citation: 190 S.W. 930
• Decision Date: 18 December 1916
• Docket Number: No. 11932.,11932.
• Parties: GRAYSON v. GRAYSON.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Missouri (US)

190 S.W. 930

GRAYSON v. GRAYSON.

No. 11932.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

December 18, 1916.

Rehearing Denied December 29, 1916.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Clinton County; A. D. Burnes, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by Myrtle Grayson against John M. Grayson. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Frost & Frost, of Plattsburg, and E. C. Hall, of Kansas City, for appellant. Pross T. Cross, of Lathrop, and Culver & Phillip, of St. Joseph, for respondent.

ELLISON, P. J.

This is an action for the value of plaintiff's interest in a large body of land in Bates county. The judgment in the trial court was for the plaintiff.

It appears that plaintiff was defendant's daughter-in-law, and that she married defendant's son in Clinton county, where all the parties then lived, about 17 years prior to the trial of this cause. Four or five years prior to the trial she and her husband moved to Bates county where they acquired a large tract of valuable land. In a part of this land plaintiff's interest was an estate by the entirety with her husband, and in another part her interest was an inchoate right of dower. It was shown in evidence that her husband desired to get the full title to the entire tract in his own name, and there was evidence tending to show that defendant became a party to the plan decided upon, by verbally agreeing with plaintiff that she should join with her husband in a deed to him and that he would pay her the value of all her interest; that she consented to this arrangement and joined in the deed to defendant; that defendant accepted the deed and then immediately conveyed the same land to plaintiff's husband.

While defendant admitted that, to help out his son (plaintiff's husband) he received a deed to the lands from plaintiff and her husband and that he conveyed the land back to the latter, he denied that he promised to pay plaintiff the value of her interest; insisting the transaction, on his part, was as a mere volunteer conduit through whom to pass the title to his son at the request and for the accommodation of both plaintiff and the son. On this simple question of fact there was evidence favoring either view and we must, of course, accept the verdict of the jury as putting such fact with the plaintiff.

It is said by defendant that the contract being for the sale of an interest in real estate, the verbal contract is not enforceable. That would be true if it were yet to be enforced. But the parties themselves have carried it out, one conveying and the other accepting the conveyance; the only thing left undone, being the payment of the price of such conveyance. The statute of frauds finds no application to such case. Farrar v. Patton, 20 Mo. 81; Suggett v. Cason, 26 Mo. 221; Tatum v. Brooker, 51 Mo. 148. Numerous authorities announcing this rule will be found collected in Railroad v. Wingerter, 124 Mo. App. 426, 431, 101 S. W. 1113. It ought to be too plain for dispute that a man who accepts a deed for real estate will not be permitted to escape paying the purchase price. The case of Sursa v. Cash, 171 Mo. App. 396, 156 S. W. 779, cited by defendant, gives no countenance to such proposition. The rule we have stated is expressly recognized (171 Mo. App. at pages 406, 407, 156 S. W. 779).

Another objection is that the court excluded proper evidence offered in defendant's behalf. As we have stated, defendant's theory of defense was that he made no promise to pay plaintiff for her interest and only acted at her request and for her and her husband's accommodation. In his attempt to develop this theory, he sought to prove what plaintiff...