Moore v. Crump

• Decision Date: 06 June 1904
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: JOHN R. MOORE ET AL. v. ROWLAND A. CRUMP, JR., ET AL

37 So. 109

84 Miss. 612

JOHN R. MOORE ET AL. v. ROWLAND A. CRUMP, JR., ET AL

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 6, 1904

FROM the chancery court of Lowndes county, HON. JAMES F. MCCOOL Chancellor.

Crump and others, appellees, were complainants, and Moore and others, appellants, defendants in the court below. From a decree in complainants' favor the defendants appealed to the supreme court.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Decree reversed.

William Baldwin, and C. L. Lincoln, for appellants.

The bill on its face makes out no case, and is directly in the teeth of the statute of frauds.

If there be any principle of law settled beyond all controversy it is that a trust growing out of a parol agreement is absolutely void.

The averments of the bill in this cause are that R. A. Crump being financially embarrassed, "agreed" with Mrs Bryan that Smith should convey her the lands, and she was to hold them and divide them in equal parts between herself and his other children. The bill does not state that Crump furnished any of the money to buy the lands, simply "an agreement" to buy and hold them in trust. The cases of Miazza v. Yerger, 53 Miss. 139, and Robinson v. Leflore, 59 Miss. 150, are clear and distinctive expressions of the statute of frauds, as applied to agreements of the character named in this bill.

If the bill on its face sets out any case, all the facts constituting any semblance of equity in it are entirely removed by the testimony of appellees' own witness, C. R. Smith, whom they will not be permitted to impeach or deny.

The facts are few and simple--to wit: R. A. Crump's lands had been sold at trustee's sale and purchased by witness. Crump hoped to be able to buy these lands back, and he and witness had an understanding that if trump would pay to witness what he (witness) had paid for the lands and ten per cent interest on the money, witness would sell the lands back to him (Crump). Thereafter Crump went to witness and told him to use the language of the witness: "Then some time afterwards, I do not remember how long exactly, Mr. Crump came to me and stated that he had not the money to buy the property back, but his daughter, Mrs. Bryan, did have the money, and asked me would I convey the property to her, as he did not think that he would ever be able to redeem it. I told him I would by her paying me ten per cent interest on the money I had invested in the property, which she did do, and I conveyed her the property."

The open, notorious, continuous, adverse possession of Mrs. Bryan from 1889 to the filing of this bill in 1902, a period of more than ten years, is a perfect defense.

If the transaction was a fraud on the creditors of Crump, and wanting in consideration paid for it, his (Crump's) heirs and representatives are bound by it, and it does not lie in their mouth to say that it was fraudulent. Shaw v. Millsaps, 50 Miss. 380; Partee v. Mathews, 53 Miss. 142; Day v. Davis, 64 Miss. 253; Martin v. Tillman, 70 Miss. 614. As to the error or misdescription in the lands owned by Willie Bryan, and sought to be corrected in his cross-bill, the decree appealed from never disposes of it at all, ignores it and the cross-bill altogether.

Newman Cayce, for appellees.

The evidence amply and fully sustains the findings of the chancellor upon all the averments of the bill, that complainants and defendants are tenants in common, as to all the lands described in the bill, and were of right entitled to the relief prayed.

This proceeding is not in purpose or effect attacking the validity of the deed made by C. R. Smith to Mrs. Mattie R. Bryan, conveying the land purchased by him from E. G. Smith, trustee, but only to show the conditions and circumstances under and by which Mrs. Bryan received and held the land during her lifetime, and these conditions and circumstances shown by the evidence establish beyond question that the deed was received by her under conditions and circumstances out of which arises an implied constructive trust by operation of law for the benefit of her brother and sister, the enforcement of which constructive trust the clearest principles of equity and justice demand. It is not an express trust, but a constructive trust, arising out of the fact that Mrs. Bryan, by promising her father to hold the lands for the benefit of herself and her brother and sister, was enabled to obtain the deed thereto. Beyond all doubt but for this promise the deed would never have been made to her, founded as it must have been upon the confidence of the father in the daughter complying therewith. Where the promise is made between the father and child the moral obligation is strengthened by the existing relation and the confidence which the one would naturally repose in the other.

The statute of frauds, § 4230, Code 1892, to which defendants appeal in their effort to withhold from their co-heir their proportion of the common property of their ancestor, has no application, except that the section expressly provides that a trust like this "shall be of the like force and effect, as if this statute had not been passed." The statute of frauds is for the purpose of preventing frauds, not for the purpose of upholding and consummating them.

Constructive trusts are such as are raised by equity in respect to property which has been acquired by fraud, or where originally acquired without fraud. It is against equity that it should be retained by him who holds the legal title. Where real estate is conveyed with an express or implied agreement that it shall be held for the use of a third person, equity will fasten a trust on the conscience of the trustee. If a grantee or devisee obtain a deed or devise to land by means of promises to hold the land for another, this is sufficient to raise a trust in favor of the latter on the ground of fraud, and this may be proved by parol. 2 Washburn on Real Property (3d ed.), 447, 451; 1 White & Tudor's Leading Cases in Equity (4th ed.), 432; Ransdell v. Moore, 158 Ind. 393 (s.c., 58 R. L. A., 753); Ragsdale v. Ragsdale, 68 Miss. 92.

OPINION

HARRIS, Special Judge^[*].

The facts of this case, briefly stated, are as follows: One R. A Crump, Sr., in his lifetime, was the owner of certain real estate in Lowndes county, Miss. consisting of houses and lots in the town of Artesia, and certain country property. He had been engaged in the mercantile business, and became heavily embarrassed financially, and in 1887 executed a deed of trust on the property in controversy in this suit to secure J. L Smith an indebtedness of about $ 2,700. Shortly before the death of R. A. Crump, Sr. (about two years), which occurred in November, 1889, finding himself hopelessly involved financially, the property in question was sold under the trust deed, and purchased by C. R. Smith, who was a friend of, and had business dealings with, R. A. Crump, Sr. R. A. Crump, Sr., represented to C. R. Smith his condition; told him he would be unable to redeem the property, but stated to Smith that his daughter and oldest child, Mrs. Mattie Bryan, had money, and would purchase the property, and Smith agreed to let Mrs. Bryan have the property, she to pay the amount, with 10 per cent interest. A conveyance was shortly afterwards made by C. R. Smith to Mrs. Bryan. As above stated, R. A. Crump, Sr., died in 1889. Mrs. Bryan died in 1896, leaving surviving her Willie Bryan, a minor, Ruby Bryan (now Mrs. Noffsinger), and her second husband, J. R. Moore. Besides Mrs. Bryan, Mr. Crump, Sr., left surviving him two other children--Roland A. Crump, Jr., and Mrs. Annie M. Gladley. On the 31st day of March, 1902, six years after the death of Mrs. Bryan, and about thirteen years after the death of R. A. Crump, Sr., R. A. Crump, Jr., and Mrs. Annie Gladley filed a bill in the chancery court of Lowndes county, making J. R. Moore, Mrs. Noffsinger, Willie Bryan, Gaius Whitfield, and others parties defendant; alleging that the conveyance of the property in controversy by J. R. Smith to Mrs. Bryan was with the understanding that it was to be held by her for the benefit of herself and the other children of R. A. Crump, Sr.; that R. A. Crump, Sr., being insolvent, and wishing to save this property for his children, had entered into a scheme by which the title to the property was put in Smith, and then from Smith conveyed to Mrs. Bryan, to be held by her for the benefit of herself and the two complainants; and the bill prayed that the complainants be declared tenants in common of the property with the heirs of Mrs. Bryan, each entitled to a one-third undivided interest therein, and that the land be sold for division, and that an accounting be taken, etc. A separate answer was filed by J. R. Moore and Mrs. Ruby Noffsinger, denying all of the allegations of the bill in regard to the trust; alleging that the property was purchased in good faith by Mrs. Bryan; that she entered into possession, open and notorious, claiming the same as her property up until the time of her death, and that after her death the respondents, together with Willie Bryan, had been in possession of the same, receiving the rents and profits of the same, without question; that Mrs. Bryan during her lifetime had made valuable improvements on some of the property in Artesia, a storehouse on one of the lots having burned and having been rebuilt by Mrs. Bryan at considerable expense; that during her lifetime Mrs. Bryan had used and disposed of the property as her own. A separate answer and crossbill was filed on behalf of Willie Bryan. He adopted the answer of J. R. Moore and Mrs. Noffsinger, but alleged that in the execution of the deed of trust by R. A. Crump, Sr., to J. L. M. Smith, by mistake he had conveyed the west half of section 18, township...