Rendle v. Wiemeyer
| Decision Date | 02 November 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 63,63 |
| Parties | John C. RENDLE and Viola Rendle, Plaintiffs, Cross-Defendants and Appellees, v. Mildred Sliker WIEMEYER et al., Defendants, Cross-Defendants and Appellees, and Sylvia Rendle Clark, Helen Rendle, Evelyn Rendle Hoopingarner, Clarence Rendle and Lois Rendle, his wife, Defendants, Cross-Plaintiffs and Appellants. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Abraham Satovsky, Detroit, for defendants, cross-plaintiffs and appellants.
Before the Entire Bench.
This case involves 38.80 acres of land, 25 parties litigant, and rights which arose in 1909 adjudicated to some extent under a partial judgment entered May 3, 1963.
The legal issues include an alleged violation of the statute 1 prohibiting the suspension With reference to the refusal of the trial court to enter default judgments against nonappearing or nonanswering original defendants and nonappearing or nonanswering cross-defendants, we decline at this time to interfere therewith. The case presents the type of situation wherein no default judgment could be taken solely on the pleadings as, for example, might and, not infrequently, is accomplished in an action to recover a simple debt. The trial court reasoned, and correctly so in our view, that the complexity of the issues required presentment of full proofs in order to do justice to the rights or liabilities of all parties, appearing or not. Additionally a paradoxical situation could well result otherwise viz., assume plaintiffs or cross-plaintiffs obtain judgment by default against nonappearing or nonanswering defendants or cross-defendants and yet be unable to prevail as plaintiffs or cross-plaintiffs against defendants or cross-defendants who have appeared and actively participated in the litigation. The statement of the proposition is sufficient to indicate the compounding legal confusion to follow.
of the absolute power of alienation beyond 2 lives in being; the legal efficacy of partition proceedings had in 1917; the limitation of issues by the pretrial summary; interests in realty as effected by descent per capita or per stirpes; the alleged creation of life estates in common with a so-called 'joint' right of possession or life estates in joint tenancy; and a few miscellaneous procedural snarls arising from application for default judgments on bills and cross bills.
It all seems to have happened this way. John Rendle died testate in 1909. His will read, in part, as follows:
'II. I give, devise and bequeath all my property both real and personal property to Harriett Rendle, my wife for her support during her natural life time.
'III. Also she shall have the right to sell and dispose of all my personal property and any part of my real estate that she may deem best to pay debts on real estate * * *.
As though the late Mr. Rendle had not sufficiently complicated things, he added another paragraph IIIII (the same variation of Roman numerals as above apparently) which contained this stern admonition to his heirs:
'If any of my children or grandchildren should contest or make trouble in this my last will in court he or she will. have but $5.00 for his or her share.'
As the poet noted 'the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.' Despite Mr. Rendle's well-intentioned plans to avoid litigation, the matter is before us after a stormy voyage through the probate and circuit courts, on the installment plan since 1917.
Upon the death of Harriett, the testator's wife, in 1916, Mary Alma Lawrence, a daughter, instituted partition proceedings in Monroe county probate court. She recited ownership of the property involved by the 5 Rendle Children. Either by an oversight, or for some other inexplicable reason, the partition petition omitted reference to the life estate, and the grandchildren in whom the title was to vest upon the death of John Rendle's children were not made parties.
To complicate matters additionally in the present adjudication, Leona, one of testator's daughters, in 1917, by quitclaim deed conveyed her interest to her brothers and sisters. She had children who survive to the present.
Partition was ordered, commissioners appointed, and their report made and confirmed May 5, 1917. It purported to divide the property among the 4 children with 29.10 acres each to Catherine and Mary Alma and 19.40 acres each to Sidney and Leonard. Again no reference is made to the life estates. With this situation existing in January 1962, John C. Rendle, grandchild and a remainderman of the testator, and his wife commenced this action naming as defendants his 3 sisters, all his cousins, 7 second cousins, children of a deceased cousin, their wives (if any), known or unknown.
Plaintiffs allege the property in interest to be the south 38.80 acres of the Bedford township property. These are 2 parcels of 19.40 acres each, 'partitioned' in 1917 to his father, Sidney, and his uncle, Leonard.
Plaintiffs aver that they and certain of the defendants became entitled to these parcels on the death in 1955 (probably 1956) of his father, Sidney, he being the last survivor of the life estate class of children.
It is further alleged that his sister, Helen Rendle, has been in possession of the north 19.40 acres since Sidney's death and that his cousin, Clarence, son of Leonard Rendle, has possessed the south 19.40 acres.
Plaintiffs pray an accounting of rents and profits and a sale of the premises for division of proceeds among those entitled.
Defendants who appeared and answered are Sylvia, Helen, and Evelyn, sisters of plaintiff John C. Rendle, and Clarence, his cousin. By answer these defendants deny right of relief to plaintiffs.
Plaintiff husband's sisters claim ownership of the 19.40 acres partitioned to Sidney, their father, by virtue of Sidney's will leaving the premises to his wife and the latter by her will leaving it to the 3 sisters. They plead the statute of limitations (5 years), estoppel, invalidity of the ancestor's will as to creation of a remainder in grandchildren as violative of the rule relative to suspending the power of alienation.
Cousin Clarence, as to the south 19.40 acres defends on much the same grounds, also alleging that when his father, Leonard, died, his sole heirs were the widow and himself and that the former conveyed her interest to son.
All these answering defendants file cross bills asking that title to these respective parcels be quieted as their interests appear, against anyone else.
The cross bills of Sylvia, Helen, and Evelyn also attempt to bring into the picture the north 58.20 acres of the 97 acres in question, contending that if any partition be granted, the whole parcel should be included. Plaintiffs defaulted nonappearing or nonanswering defendants. Cross-plaintiffs defaulted nonappearing or nonanswering cross-defendants.
If by this point any one not a party hereto is still reading this opinion, reference is made to a supplemental page hereof which sets out the genealogy in the manner utilized by Mazo de la Roche in the Whiteoak novels, of Tolstoi in War and Peace. It should be further mentioned that if all the bills and cross bills were to be considered the whole west 97 acres of the quarter section would be to some degree involved. However, plaintiffs' complaint limits their interest to the south 38.80 acres and a salutary pretrial controlling statement reads:
These issues were designated A through G, and the court with attention and clarity treated them seriatim. We will follow his form with some reference to claimed error from appellants' brief:
We answer that whatever complexities may have been created by the testator's will, one thing is clear[374 Mich. 39] --it was his intent to vest title in fee to the residue of his estate, real and personal, in his grandchildren, either per capita or per stirpes:
'After Harriett Rendle my wife's death my property both real and personal shall belong to my children * * * [naming them] in equal shares for their use and support, during their lifetime, and after their death, it shall become the property of my grandchildren in equal shares.' (Emphasis supplied.)
As the trial court observed, the phraseology is neither 'recondite, involved or ambiguous.' It created a life estate in the ancestor's wife, a life estate in the remainder thereof in his children, and the vested title to the realty (realistically no personalty is involved) in his grandchildren. See Quarton v. Barton, 249 Mich. 474, 229 N.W. 465, 69 A.L.R. 820, where the key words in an ambiguous instrument were held to be 'for her lifetime' despite a somewhat contradictory provision 'to do with as she sees fit.'
The intent of the testator, at least as to the grandchildren whether by representation or not, being clear, the next question is: Is the instrument void by reason of the suspension of the power of alienation? We answer as did the trial court. It was not, on the authority of Felt v. Methodist Educational Advance, 247 Mich. 168, 225 N.W. 545. This Court there removed any question arising from inharmonious earlier decisions:
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