Griffith v. Whittier

• Decision Date: 09 November 1950
• Docket Number: 31343.
• Citation: 223 P.2d 1062,37 Wn.2d 351
• Parties: GRIFFITH, v. WHITTIER.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

223 P.2d 1062

37 Wn.2d 351

GRIFFITH, v. WHITTIER.

No. 31343.

Supreme Court of Washington.

November 9, 1950

Department 1.

A. G. Laffin Tacoma, for appellant.

Bannon, Soule &amp Krilich, Tacoma, for respondent. HILL, Justice.

Mrs. Edna Griffith recovered a judgment awarding her possession of and quieting her title against any claim of Mrs. Anna Whittier to a piece of residential property in Tocoma. Mrs Whittier, who was in actual possession of the property appeals from that judgment. The trial court refused to grant Mrs. Griffith a judgment against Mrs. Whittier for the rental value of the property for the period during which Mrs. Whittier was in wrongful possession, and from that portion of the judgment Mrs. Griffith cross-appeals.

The principles of law involved are not greatly disputed and we are concerned primarily with questions of fact. It is undisputed that the property in question had been owned by Pierce county; that on July 3, 1944, the county entered into an executroy contract to sell it to Edward Cole for two hundred dollars; that Edward Cole was in fact Edward C. Whittier; and that the purchaser's interest in the contract was assigned to Edward C. Whittier on September 15, 1945, and was thereafter, on October 10, 1946, gratuitously assigned by him to Edna Griffith, his daughter. Whittier was at that time seventy-eight or eighty years of age.

Whittier went into possession of the property immediately after the contract was executed, and lived there with the first Mrs. Whittier (the mother of Mrs. Griffith) until her death in October, 1944. Prior to the assignment to Mrs. Griffith, he moved the two-room house which was on the premises when he purchased the property, and built two additional rooms. On October 16, 1946, six days after the assignment to Mrs. Griffith, he married the present Mrs. Whittier, who has lived on the premises at all times since that date.

On complaint signed by Mrs. Griffith, Edward C. Whittier was committed to Western State Hospital at Steilacoom on September 22, 1948, and died there on October 3, 1948. Shortly after his death Mrs. Griffith demanded possession of the premises, and upon Mrs. Whittier's refusal to surrender possession this action was commenced.

There is evidence to support the trial court's finding that the original payment of forty dollars on the contract and three of the first four installments of sixteen dollars each were paid by Edna Griffith and her husband (only four installments became due prior to October 19, 1948, when Mrs. Griffith demanded possession of the property), and also to support its finding that the assignment was executed without any fraud, undue influence, or overreaching on the part of Mrs. Griffith. There is no evidence to support the allegation of fraud and undue influence contained in the allegations of Mrs. Whittier's affirmative defense.

Mrs. Whittier's counsel, in argument in the superior court and in this court, stated that she was not asking to have the assignment of the contract to Mrs. Griffith set aside, but was asking the court to grant her (Anna Whittier) the right to use the property for the remainder of her life. An agreement to that effect between Edward C. Whittier and Mrs. Griffith was alleged, but no evidence to establish such an agreement or any trust relationship was offered. Mrs. Whittier urges that Mrs. Griffith's complaint states no cause of action. She relies on Ashford v. Reese, 132 Wash. 649, 233 P. 29, as establishing that Mrs. Griffith, as assignee of the contract purchaser, had no title, legal or equitable, in the real estate which is the subject of this litigation.

Whatever we may have meant by our unfortunate choice of language in Ashford v. Reese, supra, it is now abundantly clear that the purchaser under an executory contract has a valid and subsisting interest in property that is the subject matter of such a contract. As was said in Vandin v. Henry McCleary Timber Co., 157 Wash. 635, 289 P. 1016, 1017, the purchasers under such contracts '* * * have substantial rights, among which are the right of possession and the right to acquire title in accordance with the terms of the contract.' See, also, Lawson v. Helmich, 20 Wash.2d 167, 146 P.2d 537; Turpen v. Johnson, 26 Wash.2d 716, 175 P.2d 495; Eckley v. Bonded Adjustment Co., 30 Wash.2d 96, 190 P.2d 718. In Kateiva v Snyder, 143 Wash. 172, 254 P. 857, 858, we said: 'The respondent defends the judgment on the ground that the appellants have only a conditional contract for the purchase of the land occupied by them, and therefore have no right to complain of any action of the respondent, citing our case of Ashford v. Reese, 132 Wash. 649, 233...