Joyce v. Growney

• Decision Date: 20 February 1900
• Citation: 55 S.W. 466,154 Mo. 253
• Parties: JOYCE v. GROWNEY, Appellant, JOYCE et al
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

55 S.W. 466

154 Mo. 253

JOYCE v. GROWNEY, Appellant, JOYCE et al

Supreme Court of Missouri, First Division

February 20, 1900

Appeal from Nodaway Circuit Court. -- Hon. C. A. Anthony, Judge.

Reversed and remanded (with directions).

Growney & Growney for appellant.

(1) The testimony in this case to establish a resulting trust is of very doubtful character, being altogether the conduct and intention of a father in deeding land to his daughter. There is absolutely no evidence that the money received by the father from the daughter was invested in this land. The payment at the time is indispensable to the creation of a trust. 4 Kent, p. 305. The testimony and all the admissions of Graham in the record of this case fall far short of the rule to establish resulting trusts as defined by our decision. Burdett v. May, 100 Mo. 16. No resulting trust arises where a father or husband deeds property to a child or wife. Perry on Trusts, sec. 79; Alexander v Narrance, 17 Mo. 228; Price v. Cain, 112 Mo 419; Jackson v. Jackson, 91 U.S. 122. (2) The statute of limitation is a complete bar to the trust sought to be established by the plaintiff's petition in this cause. The rule is that the statute begins to run from the discovery by the person entitled to sue of the facts on which equity will found the trust. Buren v. Buren, 79 Mo 538; Hunter v. Hunter, 50 Mo. 445; Rogers v. Brown, 61 Mo. 187; Lewis v. Schwenn, 93 Mo. 26; Landis v. Saxson, 105 Mo. 489; Conn. M. L. Ins. Co. v. Smith, 117 Mo. 296. Courts of equity view with disfavor suits that are brought long after the transaction has occurred and long after death has sealed the lips of those familiar with occurrences so remote in point of time. State ex rel. v. West, 68 Mo. 229; Lenox v. Harrison, 88 Mo. 491; Burdett v. May, 100 Mo. 13. (3) The court erred in admitting evidence touching the validity of deeds by J. E. Joyce to appellant, on the pleading and petition of P. J. Joyce, plaintiff. It is wellsettled law, and needs the citation of no authority to support it, that no one can ask to have a contract rescinded not a party to it. The rule is the same as to minor's deed or contract. The rules of practice in equity cases can not be stretched to affirm the action of the trial court on this point. Newham v. Kenton, 79 Mo. 382; Ross v. Ross, 81 Mo. 84. (4) The evidence does not justify the finding of the trial court in cancelling deeds of J. E. Joyce to appellant. The evidence shows the consideration was full and ample. Subsequent acts of a grantor in a deed to impress or impeach the title of his vendee are not recognized, or least not favored in law or equity. Zoll v. Carnahan, 83 Mo. 43. The threats and duress complained of in this case, even if clearly proven, are not sufficient to support the finding. Davis v. Luster, 64 Mo. 43; Davis v. Crane, 109 Mo. 332.

E. A. Vinsonhaler for respondent.

(1) The dealing in this case was between an attorney on one side and on the other the client, who, when first deed was made, was a minor. It needs no citation of authority to sustain the point, that the first deed was voidable. (2) But appellant contends that there was no such duress at the execution of second deed as would avoid it. While such threats of prosecution as were made here, if made by one who had sustained no confidential relation, might be so held, we think no case will be found, holding that an attorney to whom the client has confided his secrets, can use such information to coerce his client into making a deed to two-thirds of an eighty acre farm for $ 240. In the first place the presumption is against the attorney, the burden of proof is upon him to show the utmost fairness. 3 Am. and Eng. Ency. of Law (2 Ed.), 332; Story's Equity, secs. 310, 311; 2 Pomeroy's Equity, sec. 960. Here this boy was barely of age and so grateful he wanted to pay Mr. Growney a fee of $ 250, but if the boy is to be believed his attorney abused the confidence reposed in him, reminding him of crimes confessed, and by threats of using this against him, gets this deed. Eoff v. Irvine, 108 Mo. 383. And the fact that Joyce was guilty of the offense charged does not help the matter, it is nevertheless duress. Morse v. Woodworth, 155 Mass. 233; Thompson v. Niggley, 53 Kan. 664; Miller v. Bryden, 34 Mo.App. 602.

OPINION

VALLIANT, J.

This is a suit in equity, the original purpose of which was to establish a resulting trust, and to vacate a deed alleged to have been obtained by fraud from the plaintiff's son while a minor.

The original petition, filed February 1, 1896, states, substantially, that in 1876 the plaintiff, Patrick J. Joyce, furnished defendant Graham, who was the father of plaintiff's wife, $ 600 with which to buy land in Nodaway county for plaintiff; that Graham bought the land, took the deed in his own name, and in March, 1885, deeded it to his daughter, plaintiff's wife; that plaintiff did not know that Graham had taken the deed in his own name, nor that he had conveyed the title to plaintiff's wife, until shortly after her death, which occurred in June, 1885; that when she died she left four minor children, three of whom have since died, leaving the plaintiff their father and defendant John E. Joyce their brother, their sole heirs; that John E. would be 21 years old on February 10, 1896 (nine days after the filing of the petition); and that in January, 1895, defendant Growney had, by fraud and without consideration, obtained from John a deed conveying his interest in the land. The prayer was that the deeds to Graham, and from him to plaintiff's wife, be decreed conveyances in trust for plaintiff, that the title of John be vested in plaintiff and the deed from John to Growney be canceled, etc.

On February 27, 1897, plaintiff filed an amended petition, substantially as the original, with the additional statements that the deed of January, 1895, from John to Growney, was procured by the latter's brother who was the attorney for John while he was confined in jail, and who made false representations to obtain it; that John informed Growney before he executed the deed that the land belonged to his father whose money had paid for it; that after John became of age and since the commencement of the suit he was induced, by threats of the attorney that he would have him indicted and sent to the penitentiary, to make a second deed to defendant, Growney, which he did, conveying the same land.

The three defendants answered separately. Growney's answer denies all charge of fraud, etc., states that the deed from Graham to plaintiff's wife was duly executed and recorded on the 28th of March, 1885, and plaintiff had full notice of it; that she died leaving three children, two of whom had since died without issue, and the plaintiff and John were their sole heirs; that the first deed from John to this defendant in January, 1895, was made for a valuable consideration, $ 350, and the second, of date February 15, 1896, after he was of age, was made for the purpose of confirming the former and for a valuable consideration of $ 250 then paid him; and that plaintiff's cause of action did not accrue within ten years. The answer of Graham was a general denial and statute of limitations.

The answer of John E. Joyce is substantially an admission of the statements in his father's petition, iterating that his deeds to Growney were without consideration and that the last one was made through fear under threat from his former attorney, Growney's brother, that he would have him indicted and sent to the penitentiary; that Growney knew when he took the deeds that plaintiff had paid for the land and knew that each and every allegation in plaintiff's petition was true.

This answer is signed and sworn to by John E. Joyce in person before the circuit clerk, and is also signed by Mr. Moses T. Banta as his attorney. In this he refers to a former answer, which is not in the abstract, which he disowns and pronounces unauthorized. This stood as his answer until after the evidence was all in and the cause argued and submitted for decision, then he was permitted to file, over the defendant Growney's objection, what on its face is called his answer, repudiating his second, as he had done his first, and declaring this to be his first authorized pleading in the case. It is signed by Mr. Vinsonhaler as his attorney. In this last pleading he asserts title in himself by inheritance from his mother to two-thirds of the land, reiterates his former statement in regard to the deeds to Growney and prays to have them canceled and for such further relief "as equity and good conscience may require."

To this answer his co-defendant Growney demurred upon the ground, among others, that the statements therein did not entitle that defendant to the relief sought against this, his co-defendant, which demurrer was overruled, exception taken, and then an answer to that answer was filed by Growney, traversing its statements and averring good faith and valuable consideration on his part for the deeds and collusion between defendant John E. Joyce and his father the plaintiff to defraud defendant Growney.

Thereupon the court without further trial or evidence rendered its findings and decree.

The testimony showed that in 1876 or 1877 the plaintiff, then living in Pennsylvania, sent $ 600 to his wife's father defendant Graham, in Nodaway county, Missouri, to buy land for him. Graham bought the land in controversy in 1878 for $ 1,120, using the $ 600 received from plaintiff for this purpose, and paying the balance himself, and taking the title in his own name. In 1885 plaintiff and his wife moved to Nodaway county and took up their residence on this land, and plaintiff has lived there ever since. Shortly after they came to Missouri, in March, 1885, plai...