Newman v. French

• Decision Date: 13 May 1908
• Citation: 138 Iowa 482,116 N.W. 468
• Parties: NEWMAN v. FRENCH (WATERHOUSE ET AL., INTERVENERS).
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

138 Iowa 482

116 N.W. 468

NEWMAN

v.FRENCH (WATERHOUSE ET AL., INTERVENERS).

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 13, 1908.

Appeal from District Court, Linn County; Wm. G. Thompson, Judge.

Action for specific performance of an oral contract to convey, in which plaintiff seeks to have established and confirmed an equitable title to the premises in controversy as against the defendant, who holds the legal title, and by cross-bill against the interveners, who assert a title under conveyance by defendant. There was a decree in plaintiff's favor, and the defendant and interveners appeal. Reversed.Rickel, Crocker & Tourtellot and Heald & Linville, for appellants.

Voris & Haas, for appellee.

McCLAIN, J.

We find it to be satisfactorily established by the evidence that defendant, who is the father of plaintiff, and who was over 80 years of age at the time the transactions hereinafter referred to took place, and who, having formerly been a resident of Linn county, had returned after a considerable period of absence to the home of the plaintiff near Central City soon after the death of plaintiff's husband, proposed to plaintiff that she give up her home and go to live in town where the defendant, who is blind, might more conveniently and comfortably live with her. Defendant proposed to buy such a house as would suit the plaintiff at any expense of not exceeding $2,000, and plaintiff selecting such a house for which the defendant paid, taking the title in his own name. It was arranged in accordance with plaintiff's wishes that her daughter, Mrs. Lola Mann, should make her home with the plaintiff and the defendant, and for some months the three lived in the house thus procured, the defendant furnishing the provisions for the family, while the plaintiff did the cooking and looked after the house. Defendant, however, became dissatisfied with the arrangement, and went to live with a granddaughter and her husband, and deeded the house which he had bought for plaintiff to the husband of this granddaughter, the intervener, Charles H. Waterhouse, and the other intervener, Sarah Larson, defendant's half sister, who was also at that time living with Waterhouse and his wife. Defendant also served notice on plaintiff to quit the premises. Plaintiff's claim of present right and equitable title to the house purchased for her by the defendant is that in consideration of an agreement to give up her former home, and to live in town and make a home for the defendant, and take care of him, he agreed that the house purchased under this arrangement should be hers, and that she has fully performed the agreement on her part, being prevented from continuing to furnish defendant with a home in the house thus purchased by defendant's voluntary act in leaving such home to reside elsewhere. As against the intervener claiming title under conveyance from defendant, the plaintiff claims that such conveyance was made in violation of the trust under which defendant held title to the property for her and while she was in possession thereof, and therefore the interveners are purchasers with notice, and subject to plaintiff's equitable title.

The vital controversy in the case is as to the nature and effect of the contract, if any, made between defendant and plaintiff, in pursuance of which the house was purchased by defendant, and plaintiff removed thereto, and provided a home for defendant so long as he chose to remain. It would be impracticable to set out all of the testimony of many witnesses relating to this arrangement, consisting, as it does, of testimony as to conversations between plaintiff and defendant prior to the purchase of the house and declarationsof defendant as to his purpose and intention in doing so. We are satisfied, however, that the agreement was in substance that, if defendant would buy a house for plaintiff in Central City, she would remove to it and furnish him a home, and that after his death the property should be hers. If the understanding between the parties had been that plaintiff should at once, on the purchase of the house, become the absolute and unqualified owner thereof, plaintiff would not have consented as she did that the title should be taken in the name of the defendant. We think that her right to have the property as her own was conditioned upon her providing a home for defendant in which he could live until his death,...