Meyer v. Meyer, 44765

• Decision Date: 09 January 1956
• Docket Number: No. 44765,No. 1,44765,1
• Citation: 285 S.W.2d 694
• Parties: Lulu MEYER, Respondent, v. Raymond T. MEYER and Mathilda C. Meyer, Appellants
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 694

285 S.W.2d 694

Lulu MEYER, Respondent, v. Raymond T. MEYER and Mathilda C. Meyer, Appellants.

No. 44765.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

Jan. 9, 1956.

Robert V. Niedner, Paul F. Niedner, Niedner & Niedner, St. Charles, for appellants.

Theodore C. Bruere, St. Charles, Forrest M. Hemker, Greensfelder, Hemker & Wiese, St. Louis, for respondent.

VAN OSDOL, Commissioner.

This is an action in equity to establish a resulting trust in described real estate on Tecumseh Street in Riverside View Addition to St. Charles. The trial court rendered judgment for plaintiff Lulu Meyer, declaring a trust in her favor, and ordered defendants, Raymond T. Meyer and Mathilda C. Meyer, upon payment of $1,464.16 by plaintiff to them, to execute a conveyance to her. Defendants have appealed.

The action was originally brought by Hugo and Lulu Meyer, parents of defendant Raymond. Hugo Meyer died July 15, 1954, while the action was pending. Thereafter, plaintiff Lulu filed an amended petition in two counts. In Count I, plaintiff alleged the death of her husband Hugo and sought a decree establishing a trust in the described property, and, in the alternative in Count II, sought the recovery of $3,737.43, the aggregate amount alleged to have been expended by plaintiff and her husband Hugo in retiring an encumbrance, in repairs and maintenance, and in taxes and insurance.

The parties have taken conflicting evidentiary positions as to their intention and the effect of their acts and conduct in the circumstances of defendants' acquisition of the legal title to the described property. It is essential that we review the evidence; indeed, it is helpful in this case to quote and examine some of the language precisely as used by the parties in testifying in the trial of the cause.

The described property on Tecumseh Street was conveyed to defendants, Raymond and his wife Mathilda, as tenants by the entirety, by William R. Rowe and Lulu B. Rowe by warranty deed dated May 8, 1944. At the time defendant Raymond paid the grantors one thousand dollars in cash and the further sum of three thousand dollars which he borrowed the same day, May 8, 1944, from the St. Charles Building and Loan Association.

At the time of the conveyance to defendants in 1944, plaintiff Lulu Meyer and her husband Hugo resided at New Melle. They had formerly owned a store in New Melle, but they had sold their store and Hugo was unemployed. They jointly owned, or had a substantial 'equity' in a rental property, six flats, in St. Louis, in one of which flats defendants were then living 'free of rent,' although defendant Raymond was acting for his parents in the collection of rentals and the management of the rental property. Plaintiff and her husband Hugo wished to move to St. Charles where he could get employment. They sought the assistance of their son, defendant Raymond, in getting a house in St. Charles.

Plaintiff Lulu testified, 'Well, we didn't have any work in New Melle and hardly had any income and we had to do something so we asked him (their son, defendand Raymond) if he could find a place for us here in St. Charles and he did * * * he paid down a thousand dollars on it and we had our money tied up in the St. Louis property and then he took a loan on it and after we had work in St. Charles then, after that, we started to pay off the loan and then later on after we sold the property in St. Louis we paid the whole loan off.' After plaintiff and her husband had paid the loan, they said to Raymond, "Well, Raymond, we want to pay you off the thousand dollars you have in here' and he said 'No, I don't want the money.' He said 'You just keep that in there; leave it in there because you may need it' and so then he said he would leave that in there * * * then we found out it must be in his name and we told him that we wanted to pay him off because we wanted to have it settled, we wanted to have everything paid for and he said no; and later on we asked him--that way we would get a deed to it--and he said 'No, I keep the deed.' He said 'It is yours but I keep the deed.' Then, later on, we asked him again for the deed and he said 'I keep the deed; maybe some day you can get old age pension.' So that was what he told us.'

A real estate broker, who had acted for the parties when the Tecumseh Street property was acquired, testified that defendant Raymond first approached him in the spring of 1944 in regard to the purchase of a home for the father and mother. The witness was 'under the impression' the parents were going to live in the property and pay off the loan 'and pay Raymond back' when the parents sold their St. Louis property. As the witness remembered--when the deed was to be made out the legal title was put in defendants--the reason was 'to protect his (Raymond's) thousand dollars.'

Plaintiff testified that 'we were insisting that we would like to have a deed * * *. We offered him six thousand dollars for the place * * * we thought if we gave him a good profit maybe we would get a deed and we would give him that. * * * Well, he had the deed--as long as he had the deed--he bought that, maybe, but he always said it was ours.'

A witness, who had known the Meyer family for many years, testified that when the property was acquired the parents, or one of them, had questioned, 'Now, which would be the best way to take title? Shall we take it in our name or shall we put the title in the name of our son?' On a Saturday 'a number of years ago' something was said to the witness by defendant Raymond 'about the preparation of a deed (to his mother) but that thing never did materialize * * *.'

Victor Meyer, son of plaintiff Lulu and Hugo, brother of defendant Raymond, returned from military service in October, 1945. He found his parents residing in the Tecumseh Street property. He asked his brother Raymond 'how the place was made out and he (Raymond) said it was made out in his name, that he had a thousand dollars in it and the folks were going to pay off the loan.' In another conversation with the witness, Raymond had said that 'he went down to the loan company and told the loan people that the folks wanted to borrow some money. * * * Yes; he told me it was all Mom's, there was nothing he could do about it.'

Defendant Mathilda testified that plaintiff Lulu and her husband wanted to come to St. Charles County 'and they didn't have any money to buy and they couldn't rent anything so they asked us if we wouldn't find a place for them to rent or buy, so we looked for a place and we found this place.' Defendants came to St. Charles 'and went to the various real estate people and * * * I (defendant Mathilda) was the one that spoke for the plaintiffs.' Defendant Mathilda said the amount, one thousand dollars, paid on the purchase price was her money. She said the parents were to pay monthly payments to the loan company and pay taxes 'until they sold their property in St. Louis and then they were supposed to buy their own place but they insisted on buying our place.' She further testified that the parents offered defendants $6,500 for the Tecumseh Street property in 1950 or 1951.

Plaintiff Lulu and her husband paid the building and loan association monthly installments (except the first three installments totaling $75.96 which were paid by defendant Raymond) until November 3, 1945. The payment of these installments and the payment by the parents of one thousand dollars on the principal as of October 28, 1944, reduced the debt to the building and loan association to $1,743.89 as of December 1, 1945, and on that date the parents paid the balance of the loan in full. Meanwhile, the parents had sold their St. Louis property on or about October 3, 1944.

Defendants had not tendered to the parents the amount the parents had paid on the Tecumseh Street property. They took the position the parents' payments were stipulated as rent. Defendants considered that as long as the parents lived in the property 'they were living that out.'

Defendant Raymond's testimony was somewhat like that of his wife, defendant Mathilda. He said the parents 'didn't have any income and they called me and asked me if I could find a place where they could live and we couldn't rent anything--or they couldn't rent anything so I and my wife decided we would buy a place and let them live in it for the time being. * * * I told them we had bought a place and they could move in with the understanding that they would have to pay the taxes and installments on that loan * * * until they bought their own place and they were supposed to do that as soon as they disposed of that place that they had in St. Louis.' Defendant Raymond categorically denied he had made the statements to plaintiff and her witnesses which they in their testimony had attributed to him. There also was a conflict in the testimony as to whether the parents had seen and approved the purchase of the property before the deed to defendants was executed.

Some years, probably in 1950, after the parents' St. Louis property was sold, defendants were notified to vacate the flat they had theretofore occupied in St. Louis, and they demanded possession of the Tecumseh Street property. And in October, 1952, defendants instituted a landlord's possessory action in the Magistrate Court in St. Charles County against plaintiff and her husband. After they had been served with notice of the action, plaintiff and her husband interviewed a real estate broker concerning the purchase of another house. Plaintiff testified 'Raymond insisted on doing that. He wanted us to do that--he wanted us to invest all our money and put it in a different property and then he was going to put the loan on whatever we couldn't pay with the money.'

Plaintiff and her husband paid taxes until and including the year 1950. Defendants have paid the taxes thereafter. Defendants have paid taxes in the amount of $182.48, insurance in the amount of $296.35, and $125.03 for repairs....