Humphrey v. Gerard

• Decision Date: 08 March 1911
• Parties: HUMPHREY et al. v. GERARD et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

79 A. 57

84 Conn. 216

HUMPHREY et al.

v. GERARD et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 8, 1911.

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Joel H. Reed, Judge.

Action by Marie E. Ives Humphrey and others against George L. Gerard and others to settle title to real estate. From a judgment entered on advice of the Supreme Court, George L. Gerard appeals. Reversed and remanded.

William B. Stoddard and Charles S. Hamilton, for appellant George L. Gerard. Harrison T. Sheldon, with whom was George D. Watrous, for appellee Frankie S. Garfield Emmons.

PRENTICE, J. The judgment from which this appeal was taken was rendered upon the facts reserved for our advice as reported in 83 Conn. 346, 77 Atl. 65, and in attempted compliance with our direction to render judgment in conformity to our advice then given in response to questions framed by counsel and presented in the reservation as required by the rules of this court. Sections 70 and 71. Among the several questions thus presented was one designated "f," in which we were asked to advise whether John H. Garfield, who died in 1884, was at the time of his death the owner of an undivided onefourth part of No. 780 Chapel street, New Haven, subject to a life use which at the time of the commencement of the action had terminated, and, further, whether upon his death and that of a daughter, who died in 1892 unmarried and intestate, his interest, if any, vested in his two sons Umberto and James, his only other children, subject to the dower rights of their mother, the widow of the deceased John H., and now known as Frankie S. Garfield Emmons. Our advice was distinctly limited in its scope to the question propounded. That question divided itself into two independent inquiries. In direct response to the first, we advised that an undivided one-fourth part of the property, subject to the life estate, was vested in John H. Garfield at the time of his death. The second related in terms to a past time. Our advice dealt with the present, and took into account the effect of certain conveyances, which had been made during the period which had intervened between John H. Garfield's death and the commencement of the action. Barring this change from the past to the present tense and the qualifications necessarily resulting, the advice followed the language of the question, and did not go outside of its limits. It was that the undivided one-fourth interest which was vested in John H. Garfield at the time of his death was at the then present time vested in his two sons, Umberto and James, "subject to the dower rights of their mother," save as their title was affected by the conveyances referred to. The lower court had not been asked to adjudge whether the widow had a dower interest in the property, or the extent of such interest, if any. The facts necessary for a determination of that question were not presented in the reservation, no advice from us was sought upon that subject, and we purported to give none. The question recognized, and our answer recognized, the possibility that she might have dower rights, either assigned or unassigned, in the property, as realty left by her husband. But we did not undertake to say that she had, or to define the extent of them, if she had them. All that we said was that the fee title in the sons or their grantees was subject to such rights as she might have as dowress.

In the judgment entered by the lower court upon the return of the cause are two paragraphs embodying adjudications of title which are attempted adaptations of our advice given in response to question "f" as above stated to the situation created by the conveyances. That situation as we defined it was that the widow, Mrs. Emmons, had become substituted for James in respect to all the right, title, and interest in the property which he acquired through the death of his father, and the defendant Gerard in like manner substituted for the other son, Umberto, in respect to his right, title, and interest thus acquired. The adjudications contained in the two paragraphs referred to are: "(f) That said Frankie S. Garfield Emmons at the commencement of this action was an owner in fee simple of an undivided one-eighth part of said land described in the complaint, and the buildings thereon, and, in addition thereto, had the life use of one-third of another undivided one-eighth part of said land and the...