Meredith v. Meredith

• Decision Date: 23 March 1921
• Docket Number: No. 21650.,21650.
• Parties: MEREDITH et al. v. MEREDITH.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

229 S.W. 179

287 Mo. 250

MEREDITH et al. v. MEREDITH.

No. 21650.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

March 23, 1921.

Rehearing Denied April 7, 1921.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Knox County; James A. Cooley, Judge.

Action by Aura L. Meredith and others against Minnie B. Meredith. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

J. C. Dorian, of Edina, and Higbee & Mills, of Lancaster, for appellants.

Arthur V. Lashly, of Clayton, and Stewart & Stewart, of Edina, for respondent.

WALKER, J.

This is a suit brought under section 2535, R. S. 1909, now section 1970, R. S. 1919, to try and determine the title to certain land in Knox county. On a trial to the court there was a judgment for the defendant, from which plaintiffs have appealed.

William T. Meredith, the common source of title, died intestate without issue May 29, 1917. The plaintiffs are his only heirs, and the defendant is his widow. On March 15, 1916, he executed and delivered to the cashier of a bank at Knox City a warranty deed conveying to his wife, the defendant, for a valuable consideration, the land in controversy. At the time of the execution of this deed the grantor gave certain instructions to the cashier as to its disposition. These instructions were at the time reduced to writing by the cashier, and upon being approved and signed by the grantor were inclosed in a sealed envelope with the deed and, as directed, deposited in the vault of the bank. These instructions are as follows:

                          "Knox City, Mo., March 15, 1616
                "To Home Bank, Knox City, Mo
                

"You are hereby handed a warranty deed to the north one-half of the northwest quarter and the northwest fourth of the northeast quarter of section 32, township 62, range 10, west, made to my wife Minnie E. Meredith, to be held in trust and for safe-keeping, until my death, then said bank is to deliver said deed with all other personal property belonging to her (Minnie E. Meredith) that is in said bank at my death. [Signed] Wm. T. Meredith."

The grantor never had the deed in his possession or attempted to secure possession of it or made any inquiries concerning it after he delivered it to the cashier. On the day succeeding the grantor's death the cashier delivered the deed to the defendant pursuant to the instructions of the grantor. Subsequent declarations by the grantor to others several months after the execution and deposit of the deed were to the effect that he had deeded everything he had to his wife and at his death he wanted her to have it.

Testimony on the part of plaintiffs was to the effect that after the making of the deed the grantor continued until the time of his death to lease, cultivate, and otherwise control the land conveyed. The relation sustained to the grantor by the cashier before, at the time, and subsequent to the execution of the deed is thus described by the latter:

"He was a customer at the Home Bank and carried out requests he made from time to time. Whatever he wanted me to do I would do like I did for any other customer."

It was attempted to be proved on a cross-examination of the cashier by plaintiff's counsel, but excluded, that the cashier was the agent of the grantor in all of the business transacted for the grantor by him. In addition, the cashier testified that if the grantor had, subsequent to the execution of the deed, asked to withdraw it, he thought he would have permitted him to do so. Testimony was also offered, but excluded, to show by the cashier that in all these transactions he was acting as the adviser and business friend of the grantor, and that he knew nothing of and had no business relations with the grantee, and that in the matter of the deed he was acting as agent and solely for the grantor.

I. The intention of the grantor in executing the deed to his wife and depositing the same in the bank for delivery to her upon his death is to be determined from not only his acts and declarations but, as in any other case in which it is sought to define a purpose, from all of the other relevant facts and circumstances. The physical delivery of the deed to the bank and the grantor's contemporaneous and subsequent declarations in regard thereto, as well as his express written directions prepared at his instance and deposited with the deed, offer cogent evidence of such a delivery as the law contemplates in effecting a conveyance of real estate. It is true the cashier occupied a relation to the grantor somewhat in the nature of an intermediary, but in the light of his testimony and other pertinent facts, it does not appear that he was other than an instrumentality acting for the grantor to effect the transfer and to authorize the bank to accept and hold the deed until the grantor's death, whereupon the legal delivery of the deed, if then consummated, would become actual by its physical transfer to the grantee. While the oral declarations and physical acts of...