In re Mann's Estate
| Decision Date | 06 April 1926 |
| Docket Number | 37030 |
| Citation | 208 N.W. 310,201 Iowa 878 |
| Parties | IN RE ESTATE OF S. S. MANN. v. T. E. MANN et al., Appellees T. J. BRACKEN, Administrator, Appellant, |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Tama District Court.--B. F. CUMMINGS, Judge.
PROCEEDING in probate for the admeasurement of dower. After a full hearing, the probate court dismissed the petition. The plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
James H. Willett and E. N. Farber, for appellant.
C. E Walters and Struble & Stiger, for appellees.
EVANS J. DE GRAFF, C. J., and ALBERT and MORLING, JJ., concur.
The decedent was S. S. Mann, who died in Tama County in March 1918. On and prior to December, 1905, the decedent was owner of 540 acres of farm land in Tama County. He had been a resident of Tama County and an occupant of his land for many years. On the date named, however, and for a few years prior thereto, he had been a resident of Fairhope, Alabama,--a single-tax colony, of which the decedent was president. On such date he, with two of his sons, organized a corporation, with a capital stock of $ 50,000, to which he conveyed his Tama County lands. Such corporation held the title at all times thereafter. On this date, he was an unmarried man. He had, however, been twice married, his second marriage having resulted in a divorce. There were ten children as the fruit of the first marriage, and five children as the fruit of the second. His principal purpose in so disposing of his property was to facilitate the management thereof, as between him and his children, and the final distribution thereof among his children. The stock of the corporation consisted of 1,000 shares, of which the decedent held 998, in the first instance. These shares were subsequently distributed by donation among his children, the dividends thereof, however, being reserved for himself during his lifetime, and the voting power thereof.
On or about March, 1906, the decedent was married to the plaintiff herein, who is known in the record as Mary Mann. She was also a member of the single-tax colony. At the time of such marriage, the decedent was 76 years of age, and the plaintiff herein was 11 years his junior. For five or six years thereafter, they continued to live at Fairhope, Alabama, and thereafter moved to Tama County, and lived for several years upon one of the farms in question. Later, they built a home at Gladbrook, which they occupied up to the time of the death of decedent. Some years before his death, the decedent had distributed all of the shares of the capital stock to his children, save one. For some years, also, the children had managed the corporation, pursuant to an arrangement whereby they were to pay an annuity to the decedent and his wife, during his lifetime. The decedent left a will, which was duly admitted to probate, and which purported to make provision for the wife. He devised to her certain specific property and one third of his estate. Such provision, however, did not purport to include any part of the farms in question, nor of the shares of stock of the corporation. Shortly after his death, the plaintiff voluntarily accepted the property devised to her by the will, and sold all that part thereof situated in Tama County,--some of it to the corporation. For this property she received the sum of $ 3,000. She took also, under the will, certain property at Fairhope, Alabama, including "the winter home and the pecan orchard" and 160 acres of cheap land. This property she sold to parties in Alabama. The transaction between her and the heirs whereby she took the property devised to her by the will appears to have been amicable and without controversy. Her daughter by a former marriage assisted her in the transaction. The present suit was brought three years later. Within a few months after the bringing of the same, the widow, named as plaintiff, died, and the proceeding has since been prosecuted by her administrator. No formal written election was ever made by the widow to accept under the will. Her actual acceptance, however, is pleaded by the defendants herein as an estoppel against the relief now prayed.
Inasmuch as the will gave to the widow the one third of the property of the decedent, in addition to specific property, and inasmuch as one third is the utmost that she could claim under the statute, it would seem as though no room was left for controversy over the extent of her interest in her husband's estate. Though the action purports to be one for the admeasurement of dower, it is not such in fact. Concededly, the widow received, in fact, one third of all the estate which the defendant purported to own or to have at the time of his death, and more than one third of all the real estate which he purported to own or have at any time during the marriage. The petition charges fraud on the part of the decedent in the disposition made by him of his Tama County farms, by conveyance thereof to the corporation. It is averred that he was at that time engaged to be married to the plaintiff, and that he converted his real estate into personalty for the purpose of defrauding the intended wife. The prayer of the petition is, in substance, that the court nullify all the corporate transactions and ignore the existence of the corporation, as being a mere cover, and that the title to the Tama County lands be re-established and confirmed in the decedent, and that the dower right of the plaintiff be established therein. It will be noted, therefore, that, though the action is on the law side of the docket, as a proceeding in probate, the relief sought is purely equitable. Inasmuch, however, as the case appears to have been tried on its merits, without close regard to the pleadings, we shall consider it in like manner.
No direct evidence was offered of the date or time when the engagement of marriage was entered into, and no direct evidence, therefore, that the decedent was engaged to the plaintiff at the time of his transfer...
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