Maynard v. Davis
| Decision Date | 10 July 1901 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | MAYNARD v. DAVIS et al. |
Appeal from circuit court, Ingham county, in chancery; Howard Wiest Judge.
Suit by Arthur W. Maynard against Daniel L. Davis and others. From a decree in favor of complainant, defendants appeal. Affirmed.
Smith & Hood and P. B. Bromley, for appellant D L. Davis.
L. B McArthur and H. W. Smith, for appellee.
This cause was heard on pleadings and proofs taken in open court in the court below, and a decree entered setting aside the deed of conveyance as prayed in the bill. The court below filed a written opinion, which sets out fully the controversy between the parties, as follows:
farm in Jackson county. They returned together to Pontiac, and entered into an agreement to trade upon Maynard's giving a $5,000 mortgage back on the farm. Davis executed a so-called 'bond' to convey by sufficient warranty deed, within five days, to Maynard, the farm of 280 acres in Jackson county. This was May 6, 1899. Davis was at that time a married man, and his wife was living in Pontiac. Upon agreeing upon the terms of the trade, Maynard went to Imlay City. Davis prepared a deed to Maynard of the farm, and sent it up to the house for his wife to sign. This she refused to do, and said she wanted time to look into the matter. At this time Davis and his wife had not been living together for some little time. His wife is a woman of some means. Davis is a man of property. The defendant Davis claims that for years he has had an arrangement with his wife by which she has signed and acknowledged in blank the printed form of warranty deeds, and verbally authorized him to insert descriptions, names, etc., to suit his convenience, when he cared to convey his property; and he claims that at the time he sent the Maynard deed to his wife to sign that he did not know that he had one of the blanks left she had signed; that, after she had refused, he had found one of those signed blanks that he had partly filled up to convey some Detroit property, changed the date, and inserted Maynard's name, wrote the description of the farm on a piece of paper, and pasted it on the deed over the description of the Detroit property. There was no acknowledgment of this deed by Mrs. Davis, except when she signed the blank; and the testimony shows that this blank was signed some little time before any negotiations were opened up between Davis and Maynard,--at least a year before that time. When the deed was so prepared, Cortrite's Exchange notified Maynard at Imlay City, and he came to Pontiac. The deed was delivered to him, and he gave back a mortgage on the farm for $5,000. Maynard then went back to the farm, remained there a few days, and then went back to Pontiac, employed counsel, and filed his bill to rescind the whole transaction. So far as the claim of the complainant that the farm was misrepresented to him is concerned, he is not supported by the proofs sufficiently to warrant the court in granting him relief for that reason. He visited the farm, and had an opportunity to investigate its condition, and, if he did not investigate it sufficiently, it was his own fault. The claim, also, that a 40-acre parcel not belonging to the farm was pointed out to him in the presence of Davis as belonging to the farm, is not sufficiently shown to the court to be the fact. The whole case, as I view it, turns upon the question as to whether complainant has received from defendant D. L. Davis a sufficient conveyance of the Jackson county farm, because, if he has, I am inclined to leave the parties where they have placed themselves, so far as the farm is concerned. Complainant was entitled to receive from defendant D. L. Davis a good and sufficient warranty deed of said farm, conveying to him a title in fee simple in exchange for his Lansing property. It is admitted that Davis' wife had never signed a deed of this farm since the beginning of any negotiations between Maynard and Davis. So far as Davis is concerned, I find the deed conveys his individual interest in the land, although it is a bungling affair; and the deed, even to see it, would make one suspicious that all was not right, and upon its face demands explanations. However, under the proofs, he would be estopped from ever denying that it passed his interest. Many authorities are cited by counsel for defendant holding that Maynard's remedy for defects in the title is against Davis on his covenants of warranty in his deed. These cases are not in point. This in not a case of defective title in Davis, but is a case where he has title, but has not conveyed full title. Again, it is claimed on the question of the effect of filling blanks in sealed instruments that it had been held by the courts that when a grantor signs and seals a deed having unfilled blanks, and gives it to an agent with authority to fill the blanks and deliver it, if the agent fills the blanks as authorized, and delivers it to an innocent grantee without knowledge, the maker is estopped to deny that the instrument as delivered is his deed. This may be true as an abstract proposition, because in those cases I take it the grantor directed in what way and manner the blank spaces should be filled, and the agent filled them in accordance with those directions, and for that reason the courts estop the grantor from denying the authority of the agent the same as if he had done the thing himself, instead of by another. But that is not this case. Here, without any understanding as to this particular piece of property being sold, long before any negotiations were opened up between the parties, Mrs. Davis executes in blank, even as to the acknowledgment, a printed form of warranty deed. I do not know of any authority, nor can I conceive of any authority, in this state, that would bind her by the acts of her agent, whom she had verbally authorized to fill in those deeds. But, even if there was any authority along that line, then it was nothing more or less than a verbal power she had given to her husband, and she had the right at any time to revoke it in the same manner; and the proofs show in this case that, when this deed was taken to her of this particular property, she refused to execute it, and never has executed it; that Davis knew of such refusal; and thereby she revoked any power that she might theretofore have given to Davis, her husband, to make any deed of this property which would bind her. A deed must be completely executed before the delivery of it can be effectual to pass title. Therefore it has been held that a bill in equity may be maintained by a married woman who has signed and sealed a blank form of deed, giving parol authority to fill it up so as to convey her right of dower and homestead in the lands of her husband, after the instrument has been filled in in her absence, and signed and delivered by her husband, to compel the person whom the deed names as a grantee to reconvey her estate in the premises. Her right to relief, it seems, is not affected
by the fact that she gave her assent when informed that the deed had been filled up in conformity to her authority. Devl. Deeds, � 310; Burns v. Lynde, 6 Allen, 305. When the blank deed was signed by Mrs. Davis it had no meaning or validity. If such an act can be done under a parol agreement in the absence of the grantor, its effect must be to overthrow the doctrine that an authority to make a deed must be given by deed. The court says further ...
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Maynard v. Davis
...127 Mich. 57186 N.W. 1051MAYNARDv.DAVIS et al.Supreme Court of Michigan.July 10, Appeal from circuit court, Ingham county, in chancery; Howard Wiest, Judge. Suit by Arthur W. Maynard against Daniel L. Davis and others. From a decree in favor of complainant, defendants appeal. Affirmed. [86 ......