Harding v. St. Louis Union Trust Co.
| Decision Date | 14 December 1918 |
| Docket Number | No. 19367.,No. 19368.,19367.,19368. |
| Citation | 276 Mo. 136,207 S.W. 68 |
| Parties | HARDING v. ST. LOUIS UNION TRUST CO. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from St. Louis City Court; Leo S. Rassieur, Judge.
Suit by William H. Harding against the St. Louis Union Trust Company, executor of the estate Of Roger B. Harding, deceased. From judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Grant & Grant, of St. Louis, for appellant. B. T. & C. B. Allen, of St. Louis, for respondent.
I. These are suits by one of the children of Roger E. Harding against his executor to recover certain street railway bonds and also the amount collected by the executor upon certain coupons attached to said bonds.
The answer was a general denial, coupled with a plea of the statutes of limitations of five and ten years. Issue was taken by reply. The defendant had judgment, and the plaintiff duly appealed.
II. The preponderance of the competent evidence in the record shows the facts upon which plaintiff's claims are based to be that on December 10, 1897, Roger E. Harding, living in St. Louis, and about to make a trip to California to aid his daughter, who had married unhappily and was in dire distress, wrote to his son in New York, informing him of these facts and that he would begin the journey on December 18th, adding:
"If anything occurs to me, you will find sixteen instead of fourteen R. R. bonds in that package I told you about in the safe deposit box; the two additional are Suburban; in all four Suburban, Nos. 96, 176, 179, 181, instead of two."
This letter also inclosed a list of the bonds and their estimated value at $17,005.
On December 17th Roger E. Harding, still in St. Louis, wrote plaintiff, stating that he did not know what his address would be in Los Angeles, but to write him care of his daughter, concluding:
The indorsement referred to in these two letters is, to wit:
(Copy.) "St. Louis, December, 1897
"This package, containing valuables, is the
property of William H. Harding, of 1233 Dean
St., Brooklyn, N. Y., and I hereby direct my
administrator or executor to deliver it to him
unopened. Roger E. Harding."
"Witnesses
"George E. Harding
"T. F. Turner
"R. D. Rash
"Heavy envelope, sealed with five seals."
After the daughter of Roger E. Harding, who lived in California, had been granted a divorce, she came to St. Louis with her father, and he took her to the safe deposit box and opened it in her presence and took out the sealed envelope containing the 16 bonds and put them back loosely in the deposit box, tore up the envelope indorsed as above, and threw it in the wastebasket, making certain explanations to his daughter why he did so, which we exclude as incompetent.
The trust officer who opened the safe deposit box in order to make an inventory after the death of Roger E. Harding states that it did not contain an envelope sealed and indorsed as described in the memorandum sent to plaintiff, and that he thought the 16 bonds were lying loose in the box.
Roger E. Harding gave plaintiff a house in Brooklyn, $12,500, and $7,000 in bonds for the education of a son of plaintiff and grandson of the deceased, and also made plaintiff beneficiary of a $5,000 life policy, and by the terms of his will excluded plaintiff from his estate, stating that he had received all that he was entitled to.
Unless the foregoing facts established a completely executed trust in the 16 bonds claimed by plaintiff, this suit must fail.
III. That an executed trust may be validly created in personal property by express declaration and present conveyance of such property to a definite beneficiary, and that, when the trust has been thus completed, it is irrevocable, though voluntary, is the settled law of Missouri and elsewhere. Northrip v. Burge, 255 Mo. loc. cit. 654, par. 2, and cases cited page 674, par. 5, 164 S. W. 584; Bank v. McKenna, 168 Mo. App. loc. cit. 257, 153 S. W. 521; In re Estate of Soulard, 141 Mo. loc. cit. 660, 43 S. W. 617.
It is equally elementary that such a trust can be enforced only upon evidence so clear, full, and demonstrative as to banish any reasonable doubt from the mind of the chancellor as to the existence of every element essential to the establishment of a complete express trust in personal property. Northrip v. Burge, 255 Mo. loc. cit. 655, and cases cited loc. cit. 668, 164 S. W. 584.
It is obvious that the plaintiff's entire case rests upon the terms of three documents, two letters and the copy of an indorsement on the...
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...is the same as to proof by parol evidence of an express trust in personalty. Watson v. Payne, 143 Mo. App. 421; Harding v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 276 Mo. 136, 207 S.W. 68; Pitts v. Weakley, 155 Mo. 109. (11) Same rule of burden of proof applies to plaintiff relying on a fraudulent conce......
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