Medlin v. Morris

• Decision Date: 31 May 1912
• Citation: 148 S.W. 85
• Parties: MEDLIN et al v. MORRIS.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

148 S.W. 85

MEDLIN et al v. MORRIS.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

May 31, 1912.

1. TRUSTS (§ 89)—RESULTING TRUST—SUFFICIENCY OF EVIDENCE—HUSBAND AND WIFE.

In a husband's action to have a resulting trust declared in his favor in property standing in the name of his wife, and alleged to have been purchased with his funds, evidence held insufficient to sustain a finding for plaintiff that the funds were his entirely.

2. TRUSTS (§ 82)—RESULTING TRUST—HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Where a husband turns his earnings over to his wife as an advancement or gift to her, he cannot thereafter change the character of the transaction, and have a resulting trust declared in his favor in land purchased by her with these earnings.

3. TRUSTS (§ 89)—RESULTING TRUST—HUSBAND AND WIFE—EVIDENCE.

To establish a resulting trust and divest out of a wife and put into her husband the title to real estate taken in her name by the consent of both, the evidence must be clear and convincing beyond any serious question.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Buchanan County; L. J. Eastin, Judge.

Action by James N. Morris against Katie E. Morris. Revived after plaintiff's death in the name of A. B. Medlin, public administrator, and Mary S. Meister, a daughter of deceased. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

J. W. Boyd, for appellant. Brown & Dolman, for respondent.

LAMM, J.

James N. and Katie E. Morris were baron and femme. In 1908 said baron sued his femme in equity in the circuit court of Buchanan. The object and general nature of the bill was to declare a resulting trust in his favor in certain real properties, to divest title out of his wife and vest it into himself, and (in aid of the suit) to have a receiver appointed pendente lite to take charge, collect rents, insurance losses, pay taxes, and make repairs. By amendment to the bill a certain policy on the life of plaintiff for the benefit of defendant issued by the New York Life Insurance Company for $1,000 was brought into the case as part of the subject-matter of the litigation. The said properties are described as follows: Lot 4, in block 15, Wyatt Park; lots 10, 11, 12, and 13, in block 137, South St. Joseph addition; and lots 1 and 2 in block 15, in the same addition—all situate in the city of St. Joseph. There was a decree for plaintiff for all parcels except the last, to wit, the two lots in block 15 in South St. Joseph addition. The title to the latter was quieted in defendant. It was also decreed that defendant turn over said policy. By an intermediate order a receiver was appointed who seems to have made final settlement and received acquittance. On due and timely steps, defendant appealed, giving a supersedeas bond. After jurisdiction was lodged here, plaintiff died, and A. B. Medlin, public administrator of Carroll county in charge of his estate, and Mary S. Meister (a married daughter), the sole surviving child of the Morrises, were substituted as plaintiffs, and the cause stands revived in their names by stipulation. Throughout this case, however, for convenience sake we will speak of Mr. Morris as plaintiff.

The gist of the bill is that on sundry given dates between 1892 and 1907 plaintiff purchased with his own means each of several tracts described, and caused title thereto to be put in defendant, his wife, to be held by her in trust for him and to his use and benefit; that title to some of the lots mentioned was acquired by defendant by an exchange of properties so held in trust; that thereafter, at a certain time in 1907, without cause, defendant left plaintiff, and went to her own people in St. Joseph, thence, on refusing to live with him, repudiating the trust aforesaid, and now claiming to own said real estate in her own right. We quote a part of the bill: "Plaintiff further states that at the time said conveyances and each of them were made there was a clear, express, and unequivocal agreement between plaintiff and defendant that the title to said property should not be held by her in any other manner or in any other capacity than as the trustee for plaintiff, and that since the making of said conveyances and each of them and during all the times hereinbefore mentioned, and until defendant left plaintiff and refused longer to live with him, the said defendant has recognized, admitted, and acquiesced in said trust agreement, that all the money invested in said property and in all the improvements thereon was furnished by plaintiff, and that defendant never invested a dollar of her own money therein and never had any money of her own to invest therein." The answer joined issue on those allegations, admitting, however, that she held title.

The record is long, and much of the testimony is in such conflict as to make the task of reconciling it a hopeless one. So the discourse of some of the witnesses flies so high it cannot be followed without precaution against danger of disturbing judicial calmness. For instance, we are sorry it justly deserves such observations as these: If we believed everything testified to on both sides by narration and suggestion, plaintiff would be a good husband, an industrious, sober, successful mechanic and contractor, who never drank "to do any harm," who always made good wages and fair profits, and who made it a rule to turn all he made over to his wife from the date of their marriage in 1880 down to their separation in 1907. Contra, and by the selfsame token, plaintiff would be an unsuccessful saloon keeper at the outset, then a mechanic generally running behind on his contracts, who made little above the expenses of his family, a frequenter of saloons nightly, a man who got drunk and into fights (in one of which the combatants rolled into the creek), who spent his substance in "gambling hells" and riotous living, and was an altogether indifferent husband. So we would believe that defendant got her property start solely by an out and out gift of her father and mother, the O'Roukes, who were people of means, and who often assisted her with money when she needed help. By the same token we would believe that the O'Roukes lived in a shanty, from hand to mouth, had no means to speak of, and, while they made small loans to the Morrises that were repaid, yet they never gave Mrs. Morris anything whatever as a gift or advancement. Again, we would believe that Mrs. Morris was assaulted and beaten "black and blue" by plaintiff's fists, and that she left his home because of such unprovoked savagery. By the same token we would believe, contra, that she got (to use the words of Mr. Morris) "whooping drunk," was making a spectacle of herself in the house yard, and, when in that pickle, he left off reading his evening newspaper, and with manly gentleness was trying to take her into the house to hide her shame, which polite but firm conjugal thoughtfulness she resented, and without cause then and there left his bed and board once for all. Furthermore, we would believe that he never at any time laid as much as the weight of his hand upon her in anger; contra, listen to this from the record: "Mr. Dolman: Don't you know, as a matter of fact, that Mr. Morris never laid a hand on you in his life? A. Indeed, he did; and I have been the mother of 17 children, and they should have all been here to-day, with that daughter that is here against me, but he had kicked me around the prairies of St. Joseph in those days, and I laid for nine months after that, one time when Walnut street was being graded. I was the mother of twins three different times, and during one of those times, at 12 o'clock at night, he abused me for going over and getting my horse. He was too cowardly to go and get the horse."

Moreover, we would believe that Mrs. Morris (though not strong physically) braved snowstorms to earn money by writing, by teaching, later by raising chickens, and selling eggs, but that mostly by uncommon shrewdness, economy, and thrift (and with but little financial aid from her husband) she took the property given her by her parents, and by swaps, mortgages, saving her rents and untiring attention to her affairs, she added thereto and laid up against a rainy day in her own name all the property mentioned in the bill. Contra, by the same token we would believe that she was an invalid, frequently under the expense of a doctor's charge, not able to do her housework, and was one who never earned a penny or had a particle of property except what she got from her husband's wages and the profits of his business. And so on and so on.

Fortunately much of the exaggerated color of the testimony of the immediate parties to the quarrel (we refer to the ladies of the Morris and Meister families, and to a sister of Mrs. Morris, Mrs. Craney) may be referred to that inflammation springing not unfrequently in persons of a certain temperament and environment when the sweet milk of domestic love and felicity is changed into the gall and bitterness of discord and angry strife over antagonistic claims to property. Fortunately, too, the vital facts upon which plaintiff's case must stand or fall are, as presently seen, somewhat disconnected from those spectacular phases of the testimony, summed up and indicated as above, and lie within a small compass. Before leaving this feature of the case, it is not amiss to say that Mrs. Patrick Craney, born O'Rouke, a sister of Mrs. Morris, took her side in the controversy, while Mrs. Meister, the daughter (a married woman with three children), took her father's; the Morris and Meister people all living in the same household. Speaking of talking, the feminine persistency and factional zeal of those interesting ladies on the stand could be controlled, it seems, by neither the laws of the land nor by those of social usage, by neither court nor counsel, so that their testimony, by spells, was more voluble than valuable, more tart than true. To show the tension and color of feeling, breeding contradictions and...