Prouse v. Schmidt

• Decision Date: 16 December 1941
• Docket Number: No. 37706.,37706.
• Citation: 156 S.W.2d 919
• Parties: PROUSE v. SCHMIDT.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

156 S.W.2d 919

PROUSE v. SCHMIDT.

No. 37706.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

December 16, 1941.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Henry County; Charles A. Calvird, Judge.

Action by Susan S. Prouse against Frank Frederick Schmidt to determine the rights of plaintiff and defendant to certain realty and for partition. From a decree in favor of defendant, plaintiff appealed, and upon her death her daughters, Effie E. Arnold and Nora B. Caldwell, have been substituted as appellants.

Judgment affirmed.

Waldo P. Johnson and Lee E. Crook, both of Osceola, for appellants.

Mark Wilson and Dewey P. Thatch, both of Clinton, for respondent.

BARRETT, Commissioner.

This is an action to determine the rights of the plaintiff and the defendant to a tract of land in Henry County and for partition. The land in question was deeded to the defendant, Frank Frederick Schmidt, and his wife, Callie Lee Schmidt, as tenants by the entirety. The plaintiff, his mother-in-law, claims an undivided one-half interest in the land by reason of his wife's will and contends that the defendant is estopped from asserting a fee-simple title under the deed to himself and wife. The plaintiff appeals from a decree in favor of the defendant. Susan S. Prouse, the mother-in-law, died and her daughters, Effie E. Arnold and Nora B. Caldwell, have been substituted as appellants.

Frank Frederick Schmidt and Callie Lee Prouse were married in 1904. They had been living in Warsaw, when in 1917 negotiations began for the purchase of the land in Henry County and involved in this suit. Thomas Prouse, Mrs. Schmidt's father, advanced the purchase price of $3,000 to his brother in Colorado, although at least part of the negotiations were carried on by Schmidt and his wife by mail. The brother executed a warranty deed in which Schmidt and his wife were the grantees. On March 26, 1917, Schmidt and his wife executed a note in the sum of $3,000 payable to Thomas Prouse and his wife, the plaintiff, due ten years from date. They also executed a deed of trust in which the father and mother were the beneficiaries. The deed and deed of trust were duly recorded and Schmidt paid Mr. Prouse $150 annual interest on the note from the year of its execution until 1922 when the note was cancelled and the deed of trust released. Schmidt and his wife moved on the farm and lived there until Mrs. Schmidt's death in 1939 and the defendant was living there at the time of the trial. They built a house, a barn and made several improvements, some of which were paid for out of Mrs. Schmidt's separate funds and some of which were paid for out of his separate funds and some from what they made on the farm.

Thomas Prouse died in 1922. He willed land and property of about equal value to each of his children, Nora, Effie and Albert. He devised a life estate in certain property to his wife. By the second clause of his will he described the land in question and said, "I give devise and bequeath to my Daughter Callie Lee Schmidt the following property * * * and I hereby agree to cancel and release a certain note and Deed of Trust, given by Callie L. Schmidt for $3000.00 bearing date of the 16 day of March 1917." The will was probated and Mrs. Prouse, as executrix, cancelled the note and made a proper marginal release of the deed of trust, reciting the fact in her settlement.

The defendant's wife, Callie Lee, died in 1939 and left a will by which she gave one-half of "all my property, real, personal and mixed, that I may have at my death" to her husband. By a third clause in exactly the same language she gave the other half of her property to her mother and it is under this clause that the mother claims to be the owner of an undivided one-half interest of the land and entitled to have the title quieted and partition.

The plaintiff's position is that Thomas Prouse bought and paid for the land and subsequently attempted and intended to will it to his daughter Callie Lee as her separate property. She contends that the devise to the defendant's wife, and especially the releasing of the deed of trust, made him a beneficiary of the father's will, though he is not mentioned in it, and, therefore, he is estopped to dispute the validity of the provisions of the will and asserting a claim contrary to it. As we understand the appellant, she and her representatives take the position that when Mr. Prouse devised the land to the respondent's wife and cancelled the purchase-money note he thereby asserted ownership of the land in himself and the respondent by his silence and failure to claim his ownership at that time and when his wife devised it estopped himself from later claiming the fee-simple title. Furthermore, they contend that by accepting the benefits of the will the respondent made an election, his claim being adverse to that of the testator, and he is now bound by it.

There is no doubt but that the title to real estate, or personal property, may pass by an equitable estoppel and that one's silence when he is under a duty to speak may be such conduct as to create an estoppel divesting him of his ownership. 19 Am.Jur., Sec. 87, pp. 743-745; Balding v. Farm & Home Savings & Loan Ass'n, Mo. App., 131 S.W.2d 57. The doctrine has often been applied when the owner knowingly stands by and permits another, in ignorance and in good faith, to make advancements or improvements on the owner's land or purchase it at a sale. Hughes v. McAllister & Co., 15 Mo. 296, 55 Am. Dec. 143; Skinner v. Stouse, 4 Mo. 93; Manning v. Kansas & Texas Coal Co., 181 Mo. 359, 81 S.W. 140; Balding v. Farm & Home Savings & Loan Ass'n, supra.

Before such an estoppel arises, however, certain well-defined facts or grounds must appear. They have repeatedly been stated and a mere repetition of them here will demonstrate that the appellant's proof fails to bring her within them. "(1) There must be conduct— acts, language, or silence—amounting to a representation or a concealment of material facts. (2) These facts must be known to the party estopped...