Lawson v. Lawson, 5-1000

• Decision Date: 25 June 1956
• Docket Number: No. 5-1000,5-1000
• Parties: Walter LAWSON, Appellant, v. Margaret LAWSON, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 518

291 S.W.2d 518

226 Ark. 643

Walter LAWSON, Appellant, v. Margaret LAWSON, Appellee.

No. 5-1000.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 25, 1956.

Roy E. Danuser, Mountain Home, for appellant.

H. J. Denton, Cotter, for appellee.

GEORGE ROSE SMITH, Justice.

This was at first a suit for separate maintenance, brought by the appellee, Margaret Lawson. The chancellor refused to grant that relief, and there is no appeal from that part of the decree. By cross-complaint the defendant sought cancellation of a deed by which he had conveyed to his wife his half interest in certain land which the couple owned jointly. The principal appeal is from the chancellor's refusal to cancel that deed. The appellee has perfected a cross appeal from the trial court's action in awarding to the appellant an eight-year-old car of admittedly small value. We find no merit in the cross appeal and will not discuss it in detail.

On direct appeal the main issue is whether the proof supports Lawson's charge that his wife obtained the deed by means of fraud, undue influence, and duress. Mr. and Mrs. Lawson bought the property, consisting of a grocery store and tourist court, in 1950, taking the title in Mrs. Lawson's name. She sued for a divorce in 1954, but the court dismissed her complaint for want of equity and also decreed that the real property standing in Mrs. Lawson's name was in fact jointly owned.

Although the couple resumed their marital relationship after the dismissal of the divorce case, Mrs. Lawson gave notice of appeal from the decree and paid for a transcript of the record. On May 26, 1955, which was within the time allowed for lodging the appeal in the prior case Lawson executed the deed which he now asks us to set aside. The testimony about Lawson's reason for signing the deed is in such complete conflict that the issue narrows down to one of credibility.

Mrs. Lawson testifies that the deed was given in return for her promise not to carry through the appeal in the case then pending. Her version of the matter is corroborated by the fact that the appeal was actually discontinued, even though the record had been ordered and paid for.

Lawson denies that the lapse of the appeal had anything to do with his conveyance of the property. He says that his wife took advantage of his great devotion for Eugene Martini, who is Mrs. Lawson's grown son by an earlier marriage and whom Lawson says he has treated as his own son. Martini is a mentally disabled veteran of World War II; he has been in and out of various hospitals operated by the federal Veterans' Administration. Lawson testifies that the appellee had her son put in jail on May 25, 1955, and threatened to send him to a mental institution if Lawson refused to relinquish his interest in the real estate. According to Lawson he yielded to his wife's demands and signed the deed in the hope of keeping Martini in the family home. This testimony is denied by the appellee, who says that she...