Stack v. Dunn
| Decision Date | 12 January 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 62722,62722 |
| Citation | 444 So.2d 935 |
| Parties | J.E. STACK and Whitney National Bank, Petitioners, v. E.L. DUNN and John C. Nix, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Donald H. Partington of Clark, Partington, Hart, Hart & Johnson, Pensacola, for petitioners.
Ronald W. Ritchie of Reeves, King & Ritchie, Pensacola, for respondents.
This cause is before the Court on grounds of express and direct conflict between the decision of the district court below, Dunn v. Stack, 418 So.2d 345 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982), and a decision of this Court, Myers v. Van Buskirk, 96 Fla. 704, 119 So. 123 (1928). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.
On October 8, 1971, Matthew Barnes, as administrator of his parents' estate, petitioned the probate court for permission to lease the mineral rights for a one-half undivided interest in a fourteen acre tract of land which was part of the estate. The tract was the subject of an ongoing suit to quiet title. On October 28, 1971, Barnes, pursuant to authority granted him as administrator of the estate by the probate court, negotiated a lease to Thomas Ates [the Ates lease]; the lease was approved by the probate court and placed in the probate file on November 16, 1971, but the lease was not recorded until May 11, 1972.
On July 21, 1972, the heirs of J.E. and Mary Barnes executed and duly recorded a power of attorney in favor of Matthew Barnes giving him specific authority to lease "mineral interests in real property owned by the estate of J.E. Barnes and Mary Barnes." The instrument specified the mineral rights to be leased by setting forth the legal description of the parcels, including that portion subject to the Ates lease. That portion was subsequently declared to be homestead on August 2, 1974.
In the meantime, Zeda Barnes Davis, Matthew Barnes's sister and the recipient of an undivided one-fifth share of her parents' interest in the land, negotiated a lease of the mineral rights to her share of the property with E.L. Dunn. This lease [the Dunn lease] was signed January 17, 1972, and recorded two days later. The Dunn lease recited a consideration of $10 and "other consideration," but no cash changed hands at that time. Dunn's business associate, Lee McCormick, drew two drafts totalling $4750 on his own account for Mrs. Davis, and Dunn delivered them to her as consideration for the lease. When Mrs. Davis tried to negotiate the drafts, the bank informed her that McCormick had refused to honor them because of the title irregularities still unsettled in the collateral suit. Mrs. Davis demanded the return of her lease, but Dunn refused. Instead, he filed a quiet title action against the Barnes heirs, Ates and other interested parties.
Respondent sought to assert the priority of the Dunn lease over the Ates lease, claiming to be a good faith purchaser for value without notice of the Ates lease. Additionally, respondent contended that the Ates lease was wholly invalid as it covered homestead property which had vested in the heirs upon the death of their parents. Because the power of attorney authorized Matthew to lease only mineral rights to real estate owned by the estate of the parents, and because homestead property by its very nature could never be owned by the estate, respondent contended that the power of attorney did not authorize the execution of the Ates lease.
Depositions and affidavits filed in connection with Dunn's suit are contradictory. Dunn claimed to have had knowledge of the collateral quiet-title suit but to have been ignorant of the probate proceedings or of the Ates lease. Mrs. Davis's testimony characterized by the DCA as "confusing and appear[ing] to provide factual conflicts," was that Dunn had actual knowledge of the Ates lease, the probate proceedings and the collateral quiet title matter.
The trial court entered summary judgment, holding that as a matter of law Dunn was not a bona fide purchaser for value and that the Ates lease was prior in time and prior in right to the Dunn lease. The district court reversed the entry of summary judgment because of the existence of disputed issues of material fact concerning Dunn's actual notice of the preexisting lease. The district court went on to reverse the trial court's holding that Dunn was not a bona fide purchaser for value, in that Florida's enactment of the Uniform Commercial Code grants Davis the right to sue on the dishonored drafts. Dunn and McCormick, according to the district court, were thus "irrevocably bound," which was, in itself, valuable consideration sufficient to make Dunn a bona fide purchaser for value.
We quash the decision of the district court but we remand to the trial court for further proceedings on the issue of the validity of the Ates lease.
In holding that respondents were, as a matter of law, bona fide purchasers for value, the district court recognized that the mere recital of consideration in an instrument was insufficient consideration and examined the dishonored drafts in light of Myers v. Van Buskirk and the First District's later application of it in Wise v. Quina, 174 So.2d 590 (Fla. 1st DCA 1965). Myers involved competing contracts to convey the same property. The later of the two contracts was purchased by Belk and Cunningham, without knowledge of the first, and they subsequently executed a quitclaim deed on the property to third parties, Cobb and Cambron, for valuable consideration. At that same time, Myers, the owner of the land, delivered a warranty deed to Cobb and Cambron for the property. Cobb and Cambron executed a check for $3000, payable to Myers's bank and delivered it to the bank with instructions that it be paid over to Myers upon delivery of quiet title. The check was paid out after Cobb and Cambron had...
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