Matheson v. Matheson

• Decision Date: 29 September 1908
• Citation: 139 Iowa 511,117 N.W. 755
• Parties: MATHESON ET AL. v. MATHESON ET AL.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

139 Iowa 511

117 N.W. 755

MATHESON ET AL.

v.MATHESON ET AL.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Sept. 29, 1908.

Appeal from District Court, Buena Vista County, A. D. Bailie, Judge.

Action in equity to establish the plaintiff's rights in certain lands, and for partition. Decree as prayed, and defendants, except Buena Vista county, appeal. Affirmed.W. C. Garbason and Parsons & Parsons, for appellants.

James De Land, for appellee Elizabeth Matheson.

A. L. Whitney, for appellee Buena Vista county.

WEAVER, J.

The evidence shows with but little substantial dispute the following facts: On March 1, 1894, Samuel Matheson, being then somewhat advanced in age, married the plaintiff herein. On June 25, 1905, the said Matheson died intestate, leaving the plaintiff, his widow, and several children by a former marriage his heirs at law. Prior to the date of his marriage, the deceased owned a quarter section of land in Buena Vista county, upon which there was a mortgage indebtedness of $600 owing to the school fund of said county. Shortly before his marriage to plaintiff, Matheson visited the office of Hon. E. E. Mack, a practicing lawyer at Storm Lake, and executed a deed in due form to his intended wife, Elizabeth Harvey, for the west one-half of said tract of land. This instrument he left in the hands of Mr. Mack, with instructions to keep and give it to the grantee. Later, and after the marriage had taken place, Matheson called upon Mr. Mack and asked for the deed, but Mack declined to surrender it, and soon thereafter Matheson appeared again, accompanied by his wife, and the paper was thereupon delivered to her. The only evidence as to what became of it is the testimony of plaintiff, who says that, after reaching home on the day the deed was delivered to her, Matheson asked where it was, and she handed it to him, and that he then and there, without her consent and against her protest, put it in the stove, and destroyed it. She had never read the deed, and could not of her own knowledge state its contents. Mr. Mack swears that it was the ordinary form of warranty deed, and he is corroborated in part by another witness who claims to have read the paper while in Mack's possession, and recognized it as an ordinary deed of conveyance. The only testimony in any way tending to discredit the claim that the conveyance was absolute is the testimony of several witnesses that at an interview with several members of her husband's family, in which there was some effort to compromise the matter without litigation, plaintiff said she understood the deed gave her a life estate in the property. Reliance is also placed on the fact that, after her husband's death, plaintiff listed the entire quarter section as part of his estate, but she explains that this was done because of her understanding that the destruction of the deed deprived her of any right thereunder. After the marriage and during the lifetime of Matheson, plaintiff united with him in making a new note and mortgage to Buena Vista county for the same indebtedness secured by the mortgage first above-mentioned. She says she signed the mortgage as surety only, and there is nothing tending to show that she received any consideration therefor other than the extension of time of payment of her husband's debt. Upon this showing, the trial court found for plaintiff, quieting her title in the west half of the quarter section, giving her a widow's share in the remaining lands, and making the debt due the county primarily a charge on that portion of the lands received by the heirs at law.

1. Appellants argue that there is no sufficient showing of the delivery and acceptance of the deed. The point is not sustained by the record. The testimony of Mr. Mack, which is without substantial dispute by any person, shows a complete and perfect delivery. When the deed was placed in his hands for the benefit of the grantee, no other delivery was required to pass the title. White v. Watts, 118 Iowa, 549, 92 N. W. 660. It is an elementary proposition in the law of deeds that the delivery to a third person for the grantee without any reservation by the grantor of a right to recall it is sufficient in law, and effects a complete transfer of the title to the property which is the subject of the conveyance. Taft v. Taft, 59 Mich. 185, 26 N. W. 426, 60 Am. Rep. 291; O'Neal v. Brown, 67 Ga. 707. But counsel say there must be an acceptance in order to make perfect the delivery, and there is no proof here that plaintiff accepted the deed. Where a deed or instrument purporting to convey valuable property and creating no obligation or burden to be assumed by the grantee is delivered to the manual possession of the grantee himself or to some third person for such grantee's benefit, his acceptance is presumed until the contrary is shown. White v. Watts, supra; Chapin v. Nott, 203 Ill. 341, 67 N. E. 833;Brown v. Westerfield, 47 Neb. 399, 66 N. W. 439, 53 Am. St. Rep. 532. There is nothing in the record to overcome this presumption with respect to the deed now in...