Schulz v. Miller

• Decision Date: 05 August 1992
• Docket Number: No. 92-31,92-31
• Citation: 837 P.2d 71
• Parties: Stephen P. SCHULZ, Appellant (Defendant), v. Polly L. MILLER, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 71

837 P.2d 71

Stephen P. SCHULZ, Appellant (Defendant), v. Polly L. MILLER, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. 92-31.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

Aug. 5, 1992.

William R. Fix of Fix & Mulligan, Jackson, for appellant.

Kenneth S. Cohen, Jackson, for appellee.

Before MACY, C.J., and THOMAS, CARDINE, URBIGKIT ^* and GOLDEN, JJ.

URBIGKIT, Justice.

Appellant, Stephen P. Schulz, and appellee, Polly L. Miller, established an unmarried familial relationship after the commencement of dating in about 1985 and continued to live together into 1989. In 1990, the "living together" status ended when Mr. Schulz developed another romantic direction following a trip to South America (alone) where he met his newer bride-to-be. Prior to the end of the Schulz-Miller cohabitation, they received a deed to an extremely valuable residential site located on a golf course which was acquired for the purpose of building "their" home on it. After Mr. Schulz had redirected his romantic interest to the lady from Chile, he asked Ms. Miller to reconvey to him any interest in the home site lot. She refused, and this litigation followed, to end in district court with summary judgment in favor of Ms. Miller and against Mr. Schulz in determining that each record owner had a fifty percent interest in the lot.

We agree with the district court and affirm its summary judgment decision.

This home site lot was not realistically subject to partition and the district court decreed in summary judgment that the joint acquisition should be sold and the proceeds divided. To understand the issues presented, we outline, in advance, some essential facts, most of which are undisputed.

Following the commencement of the relationship in 1985, after a period of about a year later, the parties first moved into Ms. Miller's house trailer and then into Mr. Schulz's house to live together with the continued domestic relationship ending in early 1990. Both worked and contributed to their mutually maintained household. Mr. Schulz owned a downtown Jackson, Wyoming retail business with excellent income and Ms. Miller was a bookkeeper with more limited resources.

There came a time when the couple discussed building a house which required the acquisition of a home site, not so easy to do and certainly not so inexpensive in Jackson. After viewing variant properties with a realtor, Ward Keevert (a friend of Mr. Schulz), the parties came to the realtor's office on July 21, 1989 and signed a pre-printed "Offer, Acceptance & Receipt"--a 1979 Wyoming Association of Realtors purchase agreement form. The sellers accepted and the deal was struck. Mr. Schulz and Ms. Miller agreed to purchase a home site lot on a golf course which would cost $79,500.

The stated purchasers in the agreement were "Stephen P. Schulz & Polly L. Miller" therein referred to as "Purchaser," and the document further provided:

7. Title shall be conveyed to the following named purchaser(s):

as Stephen P. Schulz and Polly L. Miller.

Both litigants actually signed as purchasers. The agreement recognized an earnest money deposit, a total purchase price of $79,500 and provision to pay the remaining balance of $54,500 in two expeditiously early installment obligations.

The payments were made and the deed was, in August 1989, executed by sellers, accepted by the purchasers and recorded as prepared by an attorney representing the sellers. Prepared by the attorney on a non-printed form, the conveyance stated as the grantees "Stephen P. Schulz, a single man, and Polly L. Miller, a single woman, as joint tenants with right of survivorship, GRANTEES * * *." The deed was recorded and then given by Mr. Schulz to Ms. Miller "to keep." Forbes v. Volk, 358 P.2d 942 (Wyo.1961). Cf. May v. McCormick By and Through Swallow, 704 P.2d 709 (Wyo.1985).

The record, in addition to these undisputed facts, further shows that the entire purchase price was paid by Mr. Schulz. It is not only the significant original purchase price which fuels this litigation, but it was suggested in the record and stated in oral argument that by May 1991, the lot had increased in value to around $125,000 from the original 1989 purchase price of $79,500.

With these basic facts established, the issues of dispute can be more easily understood. Mr. Schulz identifies the issues as:

I. Did the trial court err in refusing to consider parol evidence in this action to reform a voluntary conveyance mistakenly conveying a larger estate than was intended?

II. Did the trial court err in granting summary judgment where genuine issues of material fact existed as to the mistaken voluntary conveyance of a larger estate than was intended?

III. Is unilateral mistake by the grantor in a voluntary conveyance sufficient to permit reformation of a deed?

Ms. Miller simplifies her interest and issue to ask: "Is parol evidence admissible to reform the deed to plaintiff and defendant?"

The concept of the ex-boyfriend who now wants his real estate back free and clear of claim by the co-grantee provides the more complex issue in contention that his realtor, Ward Keevert, provided bad legal advice regarding acquisition of the real estate title. Mr. Schulz argues his intention, which he attempted to prove by parol and which creates the issue on appeal at this time by contending a unilateral expectation, was to establish that the only interest Ms. Miller would acquire was "a contingent future interest." This intent, he argues, was deterred by the erroneous legal advice of the realtor and constitutes a unilateral mistake justifying his demand that reformation be granted to limit Ms. Miller's interest as only a contingent future interest ¹ to be valuable only if she survived him and they continued in cohabitation until his death occurred. Consequently, unilateral mistake derived from faulty advice was his explicit appellate contention. Parol evidence by Mr. Schulz's testimony of the unexpressed intent was to be introduced to reform the executed warranty deed to prove his case.

Actually, the original pleadings do not directly reach this status where Ms. Miller was the initial plaintiff in complaint with prayer for either partition as a co-owner or, if partition could not be achieved, then in the alternative that the property be sold and the proceeds be divided. By amended answer and counterclaim, Mr. Schulz denied her right, title and interest; alleged his interest in fee simple; and, in the nature of a quiet title proceeding, prayed for a decree validating his title in fee simple.

The complaint for partition was filed in April 1990 and, in July 1991, Mr. Schulz filed his second amended answer and counterclaim which, for the first time, presented a claim for relief other than quiet title. Added as requested relief was a count for reformation which specifically addressed a change in the deed but made no reference to reformation of the basic document by which title was acquired--the initial "Offer, Acceptance & Receipt" purchase agreement which established the status for issuance of title. The pleadings, consequently, presented differentiated and alternative demands for relief--first, quiet title alleging no interest in the co-grantee and, secondly, a request for reformation to establish that the intended interest was only a right of survivorship. Although the pleadings allege that the entire purchase price payment had been made by Mr. Schulz, no claim was made by him to recover the gift in money which he had made under the purchase contract. Summary judgment came on Ms. Miller's complaint with establishment of co-ownership which was supplemented by decree provision determining partition was not possible so that the property should be sold and the proceeds be divided.

The principal thrust of the argument of both litigants addresses the form of the deed, e.g., estate in common, joint estate, or a contingent future interest. We find that this direction of attention provides no value for our decision. Factually, this was not a grantor-gift conveyance, but was instead a real estate purchase undertaking executed by both litigants; although thereafter, Mr. Schulz paid the contracted purchase price for both as mutual obligors.

It is obvious that from the standpoint of Mr. Schulz (since he is still alive), whether the deed could have provided either a tenancy in common or joint estate would make no difference in his present effort to divest his prior girlfriend of the vested title interest recorded in her name. What we directly consider, since the joint estate or tenancy in common difference is insignificant, is what the signed document executed by both litigants did establish and then whether that document leaves an issue of fact repelling any proper grant of summary judgment regarding the conveyance which confirmed the original agreement in final execution.

The basic law is well recognized:

The essential elements of mutual mistake in a written instrument for which a court of competent jurisdiction may grant appropriate relief are that there was an antecedent agreement which the written instrument undertakes to evidence; that a mistake occurred in the drafting of the instrument and not in the antecedent agreement which it undertakes to evidence; and that in the absence of fraud or inequitable conduct on the part of one of the parties, the mistake was mutual.

Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. United States, 277 F.2d 615, 619 (10th Cir.1960).

Once we examine this file in review of the "Offer, Acceptance & Receipt" document (purchase agreement), we recognize that these two litigants agreed how title was to be vested: "Stephen P. Schulz and Polly L. Miller." By this document, each became an equal co-owner and whether by tenancy in common as originally indicated or joint tenancy as ultimately defined in the conveyance makes no difference within this record.

What Mr. Schulz really argues is what he made as a gift to his girlfriend should now be subject to reclamation since the...