Ryckman v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 06 May 1937
• Docket Number: 26528.
• Citation: 190 Wash. 294,67 P.2d 927
• Parties: RYCKMAN v. JOHNSON et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

67 P.2d 927

190 Wash. 294

RYCKMAN v. JOHNSON et al.

No. 26528.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 6, 1937

Department 1.

Appeal from Superior Court, Yakima County; James B. Kinne, Judge.

Action by Minnie Ryckman, a widow, against John P. Johnson and others. From an adverse judgment, the defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

Clark &amp Grady, of Yakima, for appellants.

Harry L. Olson, Snively & Bounds, and John Gavin, all of Yakima for respondent.

STEINERT Chief Justice.

Plaintiff a judgment creditor, brought this action against her judgment debtors and others, as defendants, to have certain transactions occurring between defendants declared fraudulent and void as to plaintiff, and to have certain deeds given in pursuance and culmination of such transactions and resulting in the transfer of record title to real estate set aside, and, finally, to have the lands described in the deeds adjudged subject to the lien of plaintiff's judgment and the property sold in satisfaction thereof. Trial Before the court, without a jury, resulted in a judgment and decree awarding plaintiff the relief sought. Defendants have appealed.

This action is the outgrowth and consequence of previous litigation between respondent and appellants John P. Johnson and Bertha B. Johnson, wherein respondent ultimately obtained judgment against those appellants in the sum of $3,904.50 for damages sustained by reason of false and fraudulent representations made by the same appellants to respondent in the exchange and purchase of real estate. The details of that litigation will be found in Ryckman v. Johnson, 161 Wash. 568, 297 P. 206, and Ryckman v. Johnson, 177 Wash. 498, 32 P.2d 116. In the case last mentioned, respondent's judgment was affirmed by this court on May 7, 1934. Thereafter execution was issued and returned wholly unsatisfied. Respondent then brought this action seeking satisfaction of her judgment.

On, and for some time prior to, the date of entry of the judgment just referred to, appellants John P. Johnson and Bertha B. Johnson, husband and wife, were the record owners of two tracts of land lying, respectively, in Yakima Reservation Irrigation District and Union Gap Irrigation District, in Yakima county. The tract of land lying in Yakima Reservation Irrigation District will hereinafter be referred to as tract 1, and the tract lying in Union Gap Irrigation District will be referred to as tract 2.

Tract 1 figured in the earlier litigation. It consists of 40 acres and at the time of the trial was, according to the stipulation of the parties, worth $5,000. Tract 2 consists of 10 acres, and, according to the stipulation, was worth $2,000. At the same time one Karl Erickson held a contract to purchase tract 2 from John P. Johnson and wife.

The Johnsons were unable to pay the judgment which respondent had obtained against them and, as their counsel say, realized that the two tracts of land above described would eventually be sold on execution.

In the meantime, irrigation assessments, levied on each tract in 1932, had become delinquent. Under the procedure prescribed in such cases, the tracts were subsequently sold to the respective irrigation districts, to whom certificates of sale, subject to redemption within one year, were issued in 1934. Tract 1 was bought in for $4.16 and tract 2 for $32.16. During this time, the appeal of John P. Johnson and wife in the second of the two former cases was pending in this court, the remittitur therein going down in July, 1934.

By reason of the situation thus presented, John P. Johnson and his wife were in this dilemma: If they did not redeem the lands, their title to them would shortly be extinguished by deeds to the districts, and if they did redeem they would in all probability sustain a similar loss as the result of sale on execution under respondent's judgment. In this predicament, John P. Johnson consulted an attorney with the view of finding some solution of the difficulty. The attorney advised him that his situation was precarious and that in all likelihood he would be caught upon one horn or the other of the dilemma. Johnson then inquired whether one of his sons could legally acquire title from the districts, and was advised that this could be done, provided the son did so in his own behalf and with his own money. As stated by the trial court, that advice was correct and proper.

Johnson then contacted each of his two sons, appellants Daniel T. Johnson and Richard E. Johnson, one of whom lived in Tacoma and the other at Gig Harbor. After further conferences and some correspondence between the attorney and John P. Johnson, and after certain negotiations between the attorney and the representatives of the two districts, a plan was formulated under which one of the sons subsequently took an assignment of his father's right of redemption and later received from one of the districts a deed to one of the tracts of land, and the other son took a deed to the other tract from the other district after the period of redemption had expired. In each instance, however, the amount paid was nominal in comparison with the agreed value of the lands.

Despite the arrangement thus made and followed, John P. Johnson, the father, continued to deal with Erickson who held the contract to purchase one of the tracts. There is in the record much of the correspondence that passed between John P. Johnson and Erickson. It is significant that the earlier letters from Johnson to Erickson were written in longhand and made no mention of either of the sons, although the arrangement with them had at that time allready been made, while subsequent letters of John P. Johnson were typewritten and contained repeated references to one of the sons and his asserted rights in one of the tracts. It appears from the record that John P. Johnson had been told that he should not be writing letters to Erickson, yet he continued to do so. However, the form and contents of the more recent letters written by him provoke and justify the inference that they were inspired by the desire to bolster his present contention. There is much else in the evidence, viewed in the light of attendant circumstances, to warrant the conclusion drawn by the court, as shown in its oral decision at the conclusion of the trial, that the money claimed to have been paid by the sons was actually furnished by the father.

It is not denied that the sons were thoroughly familiar with the conditions obtaining with respect to respondent's judgment, and the proof is well-nigh...