Judith A. Woods v. Ralph Ankrom
| Decision Date | 17 March 1994 |
| Docket Number | 92 CA 30,94-LW-2434 |
| Parties | Judith A. Woods, Plaintiff-Appellant v. Ralph Ankrom, et al., Defendants-Appellees |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT: James R. Kingsley, 157 West Main Street Circleville, Ohio 43113.
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEES: Allan Berger, P.O. Box 123, Circleville, Ohio 43113.
DECISION
This is an appeal from a judgment entered by the Pickaway County Court of Common Pleas in favor of Ralph and Allen Ankrom against Judith Ankrom Woods.
Ralph and Allen Ankrom are brothers who, with another brother Dale each owned an undivided one-third interest in two parcels of real estate in Circleville, Ohio. The three brothers also owned a joint checking account. On September 22, 1985, when Dale died, his daughter Judith Woods was his sole heir and inherited his one-third interest in the real estate.
Before Dale's death, the three brothers had an oral agreement to equally share the rents and profits generated from the parcels which included the family farmhouse, an adjacent small rental house and a storage and workshop building on a nearby vacant lot. The small rental house was the only one of the three properties that was ever rented out on a long-term basis. It was rented to Ralph's son, John, after Dale's death. The workshop was used mainly for storage and an occasional carpentry chore. The vacant lot, however, was used for public parking during the annual Circleville Pumpkin Show. The profits generated from the rental of the small house and the annual event were deposited into the brothers' joint bank account.
On November 21, 1988, Woods filed a complaint against the Ankroms for partition of the two parcels of real estate and for an accounting of all rents and profits generated from the real estate. The trial court entered a decree of partition and ordered the sale of the properties on March 15, 1990. On May 24, 1990, the sale to Ralph Ankrom was confirmed and distribution of the proceeds ordered by the court. On October 15, 1991, the court held a bench trial on the accounting issue and rendered its opinion on March 25, 1992. The court subsequently issued its findings of fact and conclusions of law on June 19, 1992. The court filed its judgment entry on the accounting issue on July 16, 1992.
On appeal, Woods asserts seven assignments of error.
Findings of fact and conclusions of law are prepared for the sole purpose of "enabling] a reviewing court to determine the existence of assigned error." Orlow v. Vilas (1971), 28 Ohio App.2d 57, 59. The findings and conclusions also allow a reviewing court to determine whether or not the court was correct in its application of the law to the facts and consistent with the evidence presented in the case. Trimble v. Oakley Bank (1930), 9 Ohio Law Abs. 145, 146.
The trial court is required to issue findings regarding all of the facts which are determinative of the case. Feller-Olmsted Co. v. J. Ritchie & Sons, Inc. (1963), 119 Ohio App. 148, 150. Merely reciting the evidence presented is not a finding of fact. Albright v. Hawk (1895), 52 Ohio St. 362; Manchester v. Cleveland Trust Co. (1953), 95 Ohio App. 201; McShane v. Keiser (1958), 108 Ohio App. 514.
The trial court entered findings of fact based on a stipulated date of death for Dale Ankrom. The Ankroms concede that there was a "misstatement" by the trial court, but contend that since the actual date of Dale's death was stipulated at trial, this does not constitute error by the trial court.
In its March 25, 1992 opinion, the trial court incorrectly stated that Dale's date of death was September 2, 1985, instead of September 22. The court also found that the three brothers agreed to rent the small house to John Ankrom, Ralph's son, before Dale's death. Woods did not dispute that her father had acquiesced in renting the small house to John. The only factual error by the trial court was the date of Dale's death, and that appears to be a typographical error, at most. Minor mistakes such as typographical errors do net constitute reversible error.
Woods also claims that other pertinent "findings" of the trial court are not findings of fact, but are essentially a summary of the evidence. The trial court found that no evidence was presented which tended to prove that Woods ever demanded an accounting from the Ankroms or that she ever demanded that they pay her her one-third share of the profits generated by the properties. The trial court also found that no evidence was adduced which tended to prove that Woods did not acquiesce in the manner that the profits were divided or in the amounts that she received. We agree.
Findings of fact should consist of a simple and straightforward declaration of the facts in the case. They should not constitute a description of the evidence. Where, as here, the record does not support an appellant's claims, and in fact fully supports the decision rendered by the trial court, we can find no error prejudicial to the appellant. Woods' first assignment of error is overruled.
In her second assignment of error, Woods claims that the trial court erred in its determination of the fair rental value of the properties The law is clear that when one co-tenant is in sole possession of jointly owned property, the other co-tenant is entitled to the reasonable fair rental value of the property. See Cohen v. Cohen (1952), 157 Ohio St. 503, citing West v. Weyer (1888), 46 Ohio St. 66. See, also, Collins v. Jackson (1986), 34 Ohio App.3d 101.
At the hearing on this matter, Woods offered the expert testimony of a local real estate agent who provided her opinion of the fair rental value of the properties based upon the square footage of the exterior of the properties, the fair rental value of nearby comparable properties, and public records. The expert admitted that she had never been inside the properties, and did not-know about the condition of the interior of the properties. She also conceded that she relied on statements made to her by others as to the value of their own properties.
The Ankroms presented no expert evidence, but testified that the rental charged was based on a formula devised by the brothers while Dale was still alive and the properties were rented to family members or long term tenants. This amount was considerably less than the fair rental value of nearby comparable properties rented to arms-length tenants. Ralph admitted that after he purchased the property at partition, he rented the small house to an arms-length tenant for $250 per month, although his son was paying only $150 before the partition. Ralph also testified that he had made numerous repairs to the rental property to make it habitable, because it was not suitable for rental to strangers who would expect extensive repairs and upgrades. Ralph testified chat the higher rental rate to the arms-length tenant was a result of extensive repairs he made after purchasing the property.
The trial court took all of these facts into consideration in calculating the fair rental value of the properties and determined that the rate charged to John Ankrom was the fair rental value of the property as agreed to by the three brothers. There is sufficient evidence in the record to support the trial court's conclusion. Woods's second assignment of error is overruled.
These two assignments of error shall be treated jointly because they both involve the same issue.
In her third assignment of error, Woods contends that the trial court required her to demand an accounting before she was entitled to an accounting. She also argues that the court erred by refusing to require the Ankroms to account for profits and income received during the period after Dale's death to the time of the commencement of the partition litigation.
Woods' fourth claim of error is that the Ankroms controlled all rents and profits deposited into the new checking account opened after Dale's death. She argues that since the deposited rents and profits were based on funds the Ankroms claimed ...
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