Hilton v. Sloan

• Decision Date: 19 April 1910
• Docket Number: 2055
• Citation: 108 P. 689,37 Utah 359
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: HILTON v. SLOAN et al

108 P. 689

37 Utah 359

HILTON v. SLOAN et al

No. 2055

Supreme Court of Utah

April 19, 1910

See also, Hilton v. Snyder, 37 Utah 384, 108 P. 698.

Appeal from District Court, Third District; Hon. C. W. Morse, Judge.

Separate actions by Annie F. A. Hilton against Robert W. Sloan and others; against Adolph M. Anderson and others; against Everard Bierer, Jr., and others; against Fred Stauffer and others; against Nellie M. Blair and others; against Salt Lake City; against Mae C. Beamer and others; and against Elizabeth Goeghegan and others.

Judgment for plaintiff in each case. Defendants appeal.

REVERSED WITH DIRECTIONS TO ENTER JUDGMENTS QUIETING TITLE IN DEFENDANTS.

Barnard J. Stewart for appellants.

N. V Jones (Ogden Hiles, of counsel), for respondent.

FRICK J. McCARTY, J., and LEWIS, District Judge, concur.

OPINION

FRICK, J.

The foregoing eight cases were tried together in the district court, are presented to this court in one record, and, as the decision in each one of them substantially depends upon the same state of facts and must be based upon the same legal and equitable principles, we shall, for the purposes of this opinion, treat them all as one case.

The actions were instituted by respondent to recover dower in certain real estate as the surviving widow of one Dr. John R. Park, deceased. The appellants dispute respondent's right to dower on two grounds: (1) That she is not the widow of said Dr. Park for the reason that respondent and said Park had never been married; and (2) that, even though they had at one time been married, respondent, by reason of her conduct, was estopped from successfully maintaining the actions to recover dower in the lands described in her complaints and of which appellants were in possession either as the purchasers or as the grantees from the purchasers of said Dr. Park, deceased. The pleas of estoppel are quite lengthy. It must suffice to say that the facts set forth in each of the pleas are sufficient in form and substance to entitle the appellants to prove equitable estoppels, or, as they are sometimes called, estoppels in pais, against respondent, if such estoppels are available in these actions as a defense. Upon a hearing of the cases, the trial court found the issue of marriage in favor of respondent; while upon the issue of estoppel the parties had stipulated the facts to be substantially as they were set forth in the several pleas, and the court found as a conclusion of law from the conceded facts that they did not constitute an estoppel, and thus both issues were resolved against appellants, and they now present the record to this court for review.

The principal errors assigned are: (1) That the court erred in its finding that the respondent and said Dr. Park were in fact married, and that they sustained the relation of husband and wife at his death; and (2) that, conceding that the respondent and said Dr. Park were in fact married, the court nevertheless erred in its conclusion of law that respondent was not estopped from successfully asserting her right to dower in the lands in question by reason of her conduct. The facts upon which this estoppel is claimed we shall refer to more fully hereinafter.

So far as the error relating to the finding of the marriage is concerned, we remark that the same grounds against such a finding are now urged that were insisted on in the cases of Hilton v. Roylance, 25 Utah 129, 69 P. 660, 58 L. R. A. 723, 95 Am. St. Rep. 821, and Hilton v. Stewart, 25 Utah 161, 69 P. 671. Moreover, the evidence and all the facts and circumstances disclosed by the record before us are substantially the same as they were made to appear to this court by the records of the two cases referred to. While it is urged that there is some new evidence of an expert character relative to the difference between a so-called "sealing" and a marriage ceremony, we are of the opinion that this difference cannot affect the result as reached in Hilton v. Roylance, supra. We shall therefore not enter upon a discussion upon the question of marriage, but, for the purposes of this decision, we shall consider that question as settled by the case last referred to. The only question we shall discuss, therefore, is the question of estoppel.

Respondent asserts that this question has been settled by this court in the case of Norton v. Tufts, 19 Utah 470, 57 P. 409 and in Hilton v. Roylance, supra. In the latter case respondent herein was appellant, and the question, she now insists, was there determined in her favor, and is therefore stare decisis at least. If the precise question now raised by appellant was in fact presented in the two cases referred to, or in either one of them, and was there considered and decided as respondent claims, then we ought not, except for the most cogent reasons, disturb the ruling there made. In order to determine whether respondent's conclusions are correct with respect to the scope and effect of those two decisions, we have not only had recourse to the text of the decisions, but have carefully examined the pleadings, the findings of fact, and the conclusions of law, the assignments of error, and the arguments of counsel as found in their briefs in those cases, and from all the matters above referred to have been forced to the conclusion that the precise question now presented for decision was not attempted to be, nor was it, decided in either of those cases. Mrs. Wickel, the dower claimant in the case of Norton v. Tufts, claimed to be the surviving widow of one Elbridge Tufts under circumstances somewhat similar to those under which respondent claims to be the surviving widow of Dr. Park. The attorneys for Mr. Norton claimed that she was equitably estopped from claiming dower in the mortgaged premises as against Norton, the mortgagee, because she had permitted Mr. Tufts and the socalled Mrs. Tufts to live and cohabit together as husband and wife for a long period of time without any protest or objection, and, further, that she, under her "church divorce," had herself married Mr. Wickel, and by so doing had recognized the validity of the church divorce, and that by such conduct she had misled the public, and hence ought to be estopped from claiming any interest in Tuft's property as his surviving widow. The attorneys for Mrs. Wickel answered this contention by insisting that, while Mrs. Wickel did obtain a church divorce and in reliance upon its validity did intermarry with one John Wickel, she nevertheless, as soon as she learned that the church divorce was void and of no effect, ceased to live and cohabit with the man whom she had married, and thereafter began an action against Elbridge Tufts, her husband, for a legal divorce, which action was pending when Mr. Norton obtained his interest in the premises in which Mrs. Wickel claimed her dower right, and that, in view of these facts, Mr. Norton knew of Mrs. Wickel's claim when he obtained the mortgage, and hence she was not equitably estopped as against Mr. Norton. From what this court in speaking through District Judge Rolapp said, it would seem that the decision in Norton v. Tufts was in part at least based upon the ground contended for by Mrs. Wickel's attorneys. At page 477 of 19 Utah, at [108 P. 691] page 411 of 57 Pac., in discussing the grounds of estoppel, Judge Rolapp said: "In this case it appears that, prior to the time the plaintiff took this mortgage Eleanor B. Wickel had commenced divorce proceedings against her husband in the proper court in this state; and it is not claimed that she had any knowledge either of the plaintiff's purpose to loan her husband money, or of the fact that the latter executed the mortgage sought to be foreclosed; so that she was never able to advise plaintiff of her claim during any time that such information would have been of benefit to her. We do not understand that mere silence, under such circumstances, would amount to an estoppel; because, while probably it would have been her duty to speak, and make known her claim, had she been advised that her husband was about to make the mortgage in question, yet prior to such proposed action she could not reasonably apprehend that her husband, after being made acquainted through the divorce proceedings with the fact that she claimed to be his wife, would execute a mortgage to the plaintiff, or any other person, and permit a woman having no interest in the property to assume to sign such document for the apparent purpose of releasing dower. If the plaintiff in this case was misled, it was through the wrongs of Elbridge Tufts, and not through any negligence or fault of the defendant Eleanor B. Wickel." From the foregoing it seems that the court assumed that the commencement and pendency of the action for a divorce by Mrs. Wickel "prior to the time plaintiff (Norton) took his mortgage" was in itself sufficient to apprise Mr. Norton of Mrs. Wickel's claim that she was the lawful wife of Mr. Tufts. The court thus, in effect at least, held that if Mrs. Wickel, by her former conduct, had held out to the world that Mr. Wickel, and not Mr. Tufts, was her husband, she immediately, upon learning her true status, had likewise openly by a proper action in court disavowed her relation with Mr. Wickel, and had announced that, notwithstanding her apparent former relation with Mr. Wickel, she nevertheless was the lawful wife of Mr. Tufts. The controlling elements upon which the court seemingly based the decision therefore were: (1) That Mrs. Wickel, upon learning of the invalidity of the church divorce, at once ceased to live and cohabit with Mr. Wickel, and by commencing an action for divorce against Mr. Tufts had effectually repudiated that which, by her former conduct, the public generally had a right to assume as...