Heatter v. Lucas

• Decision Date: 21 May 1951
• Citation: 80 A.2d 749,367 Pa. 296
• Parties: HEATTER v. LUCAS et al.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

80 A.2d 749

367 Pa. 296

HEATTER v. LUCAS et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 21, 1951

Action by M. W. Heatter, individually and/or as administrator of the estate of Joseph Lucas, deceased, against Matilda Lucas and another for declaratory judgment as to the interpretation of a deed. The Court of Common Pleas of Washington County at No 209, February Term, 1951, Carl E. Gibson, J., rendered judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appealed. The Supreme Court, Chidsey, J., held that, where land was deeded to ‘ Francis Lucas, a single man, and Joseph Lucas and Matilda Lucas, his wife’, and is appeared that Francis Lucas was the son of the other two grantees, the husband and wife took their estate by the entireties and the son had a one half interest in the property.

Judgment vacated and record remanded with instructions.

Where land was deeded to " Francis Lucas, a single man, and Joseph Lucas and Matilda Lucas, his wife", and it appeared that Francis Lucas was the son of the other two grantees, the husband and wife took a one-half interest as tenants by the entireties and son had a one-half interest in property.

August L. Sismondo, Charleroi, for appellant.

H Russell Stahlman, Charleroi, for appellee.

Before DREW, C. J., and STERN, JONES, BELL, LADNER and CHIDSEY, JJ.

CHIDSEY Justice.

This is an appeal from a declaratory judgment entered by the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County. The facts are not in dispute. The petitioner is a creditor and administrator of the estate of Joseph Lucas, deceased. During decedent's lifetime a certain farm, situate in Washington County was deeded to ‘ Francis Lucas, a single man, and Joseph Lucas and Matilda Lucas, his wife.’ There is no pointed indication in the deed of what share was intended to pass to each of the grantees, the habendum clause providing, ‘To Have and To Hold the same unto and for the use of the said parties of the second part their heirs and assigns forever, * * *’ .

Francis is the son of Joseph and Matilda who were in fact husband and wife at the time the deed was executed on August 10, 1942. Joseph having predeceased Matilda on September 3, 1949, the marriage then still subsisting, Matilda contends that by the above deed Francis took an undivided one-half interest in the farm as a tenant in common with Joseph and Matilda who took the remaining half as tenants by the entireties; that upon Joseph's death she became the sole owner of the one-half interest formerly held by the entireties. The petitioner contends that each of the grantees took an undivided one-third interest in the farm; that the deed did not create a tenancy by the entireties and that at Joseph's death his undivided one-third interest in the realty is subject to sale for payment of his debts.

In a conveyance to ‘ A’, ‘ B’ and ‘ C’ in which ‘ B’ and ‘ C’ are husband and wife, there are three possible constructions: (1) the parties may each be deemed to take undivided one-third interests without the creation of a tenancy by entireties as between the husband and wife (2) ‘ A’ may be deemed to take an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common with ‘ B’ and ‘ C’, who hold the remaining one-half interest as tenants by the entireties (3) ‘ A’ may be deemed to take a one-third interest as a tenant in common with ‘ B’ and ‘ C’, who hold the remaining two-thirds interest as tenants by the entireties. It may be fairly stated that prior to the Married Women's Property Acts passed from time to time, such a conveyance by all the authorities, would have come within construction (2) above: Johnson v. Hart, 1843, 6 Watts & S. 319; 26 Am.Jur., Husband and Wife, Section 74, page 700; 13 R.C.L., Husband and Wife, Section 126, pages 1103-4; 41 C.J.S., Husband and Wife, § 31f, page 454; 30 C.J., Husband and Wife, Section 95g, page 564; 1 Coke on Littleton (1827), Section 291.187, page 853. The basis of such construction was the unity of husband and wife arising out of the marriage relationship. What effect, if any, is to be ascribed to the Married Women's Acts?

A conveyance of either real or personal property to a husband and wife, without more, vests in them an estate by the entireties and upon the death of either the survivor takes the whole: In re Bramberry's Estate, 1893, 156 Pa. 628, 632, 27 A. 405,22 L.R.A. 594; Madden v. Gosztonyi Savings & Trust Company, 1938, 331 Pa. 476, 484,200 A.2d 624,117 A.L.R. 904. There is no rule of construction or other restraint which interdicts the creation of a tenancy in common (or joint tenancy) in which a unit held by the entireties constitutes one of the moities or shares: See 132 A.L.R. 643-644. It was never intended in either Mauser v. Mauser, 1937, 326 Pa. 257, 259, 192 A. 137 or In re Kleinschmidt's Estate, 1949, 362 Pa. 353, 356, 67 A.2d 117, 118, to rule otherwise. The observation, ‘ An estate by the entireties, whether in personalty or realty, must be held in the names of husband and wife and no others'^[1] is only a rephrasing of the definition of an estate by the entireties.

At the common law and under early Pennsylvania law a conveyance to husband and wife under circumstances involving unity of time, title, interest and possession created a tenancy by the entireties regardless of the intention of the parties. Stuckey v. Keefe's Executors, 1856, 26 Pa. 397; Johnson v. Hart, supra, 1843. In the Stuckey case Chief Justice Lewis, 26 Pa. at page 403 confined his opinion to the state of the law in force prior to the Act of April 11, 1848, P.L. 536, 12 P.S. § 64, relating to married women.

In Merritt v. Whitlock, 1901, 200 Pa. 50, 55, 49 A. 786, 787, Justice Mitchell stated, ‘ The incapacity of husband and wife to take as joint tenants or tenants in common was a strict, logical deduction from their entire unity at common law. When the statute in relation to married women severed this unity as to property, the reason of the rule no longer existed. * * * And it may be considered as still an open question whether they may not now, since the acts referred to, take as well as hold in common, if that be the actual intent, notwithstanding the legal presumption to the contrary.’ In Blease v. Anderson, 1913, 241 Pa. 198, 88 A. 365 the question posed in the Merritt case was answered and it was held that if there appear an intention to create an estate other than by the entireties such an intention would be given effect.

In the absence of evidence of intention, does the presumption that an estate by the entireties is created when the conveyance is solely to husband and wife also apply to a conveyance to a husband and wife together with third parties? The real question is where we shall place the burden of construction when the intention is not sufficiently manifested by a perusal of the instrument creating the estate. In the situation where only the husband and wife are involved this Court has been content to allow the construction that, in the...