Reid v. Reid

• Decision Date: 01 December 1953
• Citation: 68 So.2d 821
• Parties: REID v. REID.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 821

68 So.2d 821

REID v. REID.

Supreme Court of Florida, Special Division B.

Dec. 1, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 4, 1954.

Franks & Gordon, Miami, for appellant.

Carr & O'Quinn, Miami, and J. Ben Watkins, Tallahassee, for appellee.

THOMAS, Justice.

The appellee was granted a divorce from appellant and an appeal was taken to this Court. No question now presented for determination constitutes a challenge to the divorce itself; only ancillary matters are involved.

The master who heard the testimony concluded that the appellant was worth approximately one hundred thousand dollars. He recommended that the appellant be required to convey to the appellee his interest in property held as an estate by the entireties, to deliver certain personal property, to pay alimony of two hundred dollars monthly, and to pay the costs and attorneys' fees.

Appellant's attorney dictated into the record an offer of a property settlement and this offer was incorporated in the master's report. We consider the offer highly important in view of the attacks made upon the decree. The appellant proposed to pay the appellee twenty thousand dollars, five thousand in cash and the remainder in deferred payments, to convey to the appellee the personal property and his interest in the real property. As an alternative he offered appellee the use of the house, two hundred dollars monthly as alimony, and he agreed to pay the court costs, which according to the record, included a fee for the appellee's attorneys.

When the master's report was tested by the exceptions of appellant the chancellor accepted the recommendation with respect to fees, but he rejected the recommendations about the alimony, and also the 'property settlement', except the conveyance of the interest in the realty. He commanded the appellant to convey to the appellee his interest in the estate by the entireties, to transfer to appellee the personal property, to pay appellee the sum of $20,000, and to pay stated amounts to the appellee's attorneys and the master. The chancellor also enjoined the appellant from hypothecating or disposing of any of his property until further order of the court.

The first question may be simply stated: Did the chancellor have the power to command the appellant to convey his interest in the property which was held as an estate by the entireties at the time the decree was entered?

We have so frequently dealt with such an estate that there is no occasion to pause here to repeat our definitions. It is sufficient to say that the interests of the parties, who must have been man and wife for such an estate to have been created, became crystallized by a dissolution of the union. At once they became 'tenants in common.' Sec. 689.15, Florida Statutes 1951, and F.S.A., each owning an undivided one-half interest in the property.

Clearly, under Sec. 65.08, Florida Statutes 1951, and F.S.A., the chancellor had the power to order payment of alimony 'in a lump sum.' He had also the power to require the conveyance by the husband to the wife of real property owned entirely by the husband. See Bezanilla v. Bezanilla, Fla., 65 So.2d 754. If the chancellor can order the conveyance of property the husband owns outright there is no reason to hold that he cannot order the man to convey to the woman his undivided interest in property they own as tenants in common.

The factual situations in Strauss v. Strauss, 148 Fla. 23, 3 So.2d 727, and Pollack v. Pollack, 159 Fla. 224, 31 So.2d 253, should cause no complications of the matter now being determined. In the first of these cases the chancellor had attempted to coerce the wife to convey to the husband her interest in an estate the parties had held in entirety on the theory that the property had been purchased with the husband's funds and that he had dominion over it. The court referred to the familiar principle that where an estate by the entireties is...