Humphrey v. Gerard

• Decision Date: 14 June 1910
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: HUMPHREY et al. v. GERARD et al.

77 A. 65

83 Conn. 346

HUMPHREY et al.

v. GERARD et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 14, 1910.

Case Reserved from Superior Court, New Haven County; William H. Williams, Judge.

Action under Gen. St. 1902, § 4053, by Marie E. Ives Humphrey and others against George L. Gerard and others, to settle title to real estate. Cause reserved on facts found, for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors on questions stipulated by counsel, as provided for by rules 70, 71. Judgment advised.

Henry G. Newton and Harrison Hewitt, for plaintiffs. Edward H. Rogers, for defendants Josephine L. Hazelton Hill and Demetrius Cummings. William B. Stoddard, for defendant George L. Gerard. Harrison T, Sheldon, for defendants Frankie S. Garfield Emmons and others. E. P. Arvine, for defendant Nathaniel L. Garfield.

PRENTICE, J. The general situation which has given rise to this controversy has been before us in some of its aspects upon four former occasions. The facts which enter into it are fully recited in connection with the report of these several appearances. The relation of the plaintiffs to the situation may be gathered from the report of the second of the cases, and that of the other parties to each other and to the property in dispute from that of the two cases which followed. The land described in the complaint is that known as No. 780 Chapel street.

In Ives v. Beecher, 75 Conn. 153, 52 Atl. 740, no question of present significance was determined. The ultimate question involved in that case, which was one to foreclose a judgment lien, came before us later upon a reservation for our advice. Ives v. Beecher, 75 Conn. 564, 54 Atl. 207. We then advised that a judgment of foreclosure be rendered in favor of the plaintiffs, who are the plaintiffs here, and held that they would, by the filing and foreclosure of their lien, acquire whatever unexempt, alienable right, title, or interest Mrs. Beecher had at the time their lien was filed in the several pieces of land described therein, one of which was No. 780 Chapel street. What the measure of that right, title, or interest was we did not determine. Judgment was subsequently rendered pursuant to the advice, and there was no redemption.

Gerard v. Ives, 78 Conn. 485, 62 Atl. 607, was a suit brought under section 4053 of the General Statutes of 1902, against the present plaintiffs by Gerard, who was the only child ever born to Mrs. Beecher, and her prospective heir at law, to determine the title to this property, No. 780 Chapel street. He presented the claim that he was the owner in fee, subject to the outstanding life estate in his mother, who was still living at nearly 90 years of age. He asserted this claim, first, by virtue of the terms of Sarah L. Maltby's will and the distribution of her estate made thereunder, and second, by virtue of that distribution, when taken in connection with the facts and circumstances which attended and followed the making of it, all together creating a family agreement, such as was recognized in Ward v. Ives, 75 Conn. 598, 54 Atl. 730. We held that Gerard took no interest whatsoever in the property under Mrs. Maltby's will, that he took none under the distribution, since it was one made for the purpose of carrying the will into effect, and that he acquired none under the distribution, taken in connection with the facts and circumstances which attended and followed its making. We held that these facts and circumstances differed so widely from those presented in Ward v. Ives that the situation was not brought within the doctrine of that case.

Gerard v. Beecher, 80 Conn. 363, 68 Atl. 438, 15 L R. A. (N. S.) 900, was another proceeding brought under the statute by Gerard to settle the title to this same piece of land. This time persons were made parties defendant who were not in the former suit, and through the medium of a cross-complaint questions relating to the title to No. 782, which was in some ways complicated with that to No. 780, were also presented. The parties included all those who are in the present action, save only two defendants whose claims are in subordination to those of codefendants under whom they hold by conveyance, and all who could claim any interest in No. 780, either by descent from Mrs. Maltby or by force of any construction which might be given to her will or to the distribution of her estate, or by virtue of any so-called family agreement, within the meaning of the decision in Ward v. Ives. Mrs. Beecher, who was then alive, was a party, as were the present defendants, viz., Gerard, Nathaniel L. Garfield, the widow and children of John H. Garfield, deceased, whose estate had been settled and all claims against it paid, and Mr. and Mrs. Hill. The rights of all of these parties whose claims rested upon descent from Mrs. Maltby, devise by her, distribution of her estate, or so-called family agreement, were reviewed and fully adjudicated. At this time the claim was especially urged upon us that the distribution, in so far as portions of Mrs. Maltby's estate were intestate, was to be regarded as one of such estate, and not as one under the will, and given effect accordingly. It was contended that when so regarded it was in itself effective to give to Gerard the fee in No. 780, subject to his mother's life estate, and if not so effective, that when it was considered in connection with the facts and circumstances which attended and succeeded it, an operative family agreement would be created which would lead to that result. We denied all these claims, adjudged that Gerard had no interest in the property by force of any or all of the facts relied upon by him as stated, and that the remainder claimed by him was the intestate estate of Mrs. Maltby, with the result that upon her death it passed to her heirs at law, and affirmed the judgment of the trial court to that effect, from which appeal had been taken.

It thus appears that there was then a final adjudication binding upon all the parties concerned that the fee of the property in question, subject to Mrs. Beecher's life estate, was the intestate estate of Mrs. Maltby, and also that there had been no distribution of her estate in intestacy. There was not then and is not now any question as to the persons who would be entitled by operation of law, and regardless of alienations or appropriations by legal processes, to her undistributed realty, and the share and interest of each therein. Mrs. Beecher, during her life, would have been entitled to an undivided one-fourth thereof, and following her death, her son; Nathaniel L. Garfield and Mrs. Hill would each be entitled to an undivided fourth, and the widow and heirs of John Garfield, deceased, to the remaining fourth. That adjudication therefore was one which judicially established that the title to the property, except as it may have been affected by transfers of it through conveyances since Mrs. Maltby's death or as the result of legal processes, was in these persons as tenants in common in the shares stated. The judgment in Ives v. Beecher, 75 Conn. 153, 52 Atl. 746, also judicially established that the present plaintiffs had become substituted for Mrs. Beecher's son, as the owners of the undivided one-fourth which was hers.

Two things have happened since this adjudication was made. Mrs. Beecher has died, and in 1909 the General Assembly passed an act which reads as follows: "Whenever, in the distribution of any estate, there shall be set out either real or personal property to one for life, and after the decease of the life tenant to the life tenant's heirs, the word 'heirs' shall be prima facie evidence that the estate is set to and vested in the children of the life tenant." Pub. Laws 1909, c. 133.

The chief significance of Mrs. Beecher's death lies in the fact that her life estate has terminated, and that the interest of the plaintiffs in the property by reason of that fact has become so changed as to prompt them to ask for an adjudication upon the matter of claimed betterments resulting from improvements made upon the property by Mrs. Beecher, and their interest arising therefrom, and for relief by way of a sale of the property and a division of the proceeds. The plaintiffs have also presented the claim that Mrs. Beecher took under Mrs. Maltby's will and distribution a fee in the entire property. The extent and character of Mrs. Beecher's interest has been fixed by the former adjudications recited.

The statute is relied upon by Gerard, and in support of him by the Hills, as accomplishing a complete reversal of former conclusions expressed in judgments rendered, and as now requiring at the hands of the superior court a judgment announcing such reversal, and adjudging that under the distribution of Mrs. Maltby's estate Gerard, as the only child of Mrs. Beecher, is vested with the fee of the property in controversy.

The most apparent answer to this contention is found in the fact that the statute is not a retrospective one. The presumption is that statutes are intended to operate prospectively. They should never be construed as having a retrospective effect, unless there terms show clearly and unmistakably a legislative intention that they should so operate. Atwood v. Buckingham, 78 Conn. 423, 426, 62 Atl. 616; Goshen v. Stonington, 4 Conn. 209, 222, 10 Am. Dec. 121; State ex rel. Judson v. County Commissioners, 68 Conn. 16, 24, 35 Atl. 801; Murray v. Gibson, 15 How. 421, 423, 14 L. Ed. 755. "Retroaction should never be allowed to a statute, unless it is required by an express command of the Legislature, or by an unavoidable implication arising from the necessity of adopting such a construction in order to give full effect to all its provisions." Middletown v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 62 Conn. 492, 497, 27 Atl. 119, 121; Smith v. Lyon, 44 Conn. 175, 178. The language of the statute before us, taken in its natural import, looks forward rather than backward. As we said of the statute in the next to the...