Stealey v. Lyons
| Decision Date | 23 March 1946 |
| Docket Number | 9749. |
| Parties | STEALEY et al. v. LYONS et al. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. During coverture, the possession of one spouse of land owned by the other is not adverse to the title of such other spouse, and can not operate to transfer the title in such land to the one from the other.
2. The possession of land by a life tenant, or of those claiming under him, is not adverse to those entitled to the remainder in such land.
3. Under the law of this State, as it existed on October 7 1913, a court of equity will not reform a deed made on that day by a married woman so as to make it include land it should have embraced, but did not embrace by reason of mutual mistake of the parties to such deed.
4. A bill of complaint which is not susceptible of amendment may not be amended by plaintiffs, or remanded to rules for that purpose; and in such case, after demurrer of defendant is sustained, the bill of complaint should be dismissed by the trial court.
R. E. Stealey, of Charleston, and K. C. Moore, of Parkersburg, for appellants.
Clark Woodroe & Butts, of Charleston, for respondents.
This suit in equity involves the rights and the interests of claimants to improved real estate in the City of Parkersburg formerly owned by Mattie E. Woodbridge, who died testate on February 16, 1919. It was instituted February 2, 1942, by R. T. Stealey, Administrator cum testamento annexo, de bonis non, of the estate of William D. Woodbridge, deceased, John M. Woodbridge, William Woodbridge Taylor, William Hopkins Wickes, and Edward Wilkinson, against Emma Lyons and H. B. Lyons, in the Circuit Court of Wood County. The plaintiffs, other than the personal representative, are the beneficiaries, and the successor of a beneficiary, under the will of William D. Woodbridge. The defendant, Emma Lyons, is an heir at law of Mattie E. Woodbridge and the grantee in a deed dated June 9, 1941, made by Special Commissioners in an earlier suit to partition the real estate of which Mattie E. Woodbridge died seized, and is one of the claimants of the property in controversy in this suit. The defendant, H. B. Lyons, is the husband of Emma Lyons and purchased the property for her at the judicial sale made in the partition suit.
The bill of complaint, which was challenged by the defendants by demurrer and amended demurrer, is lengthy and it alleges, in substance, facts which are summarized in the nine immediately following paragraphs of this opinion.
Prior to the year 1887 William M. Evans, grandfather of Mattie E. Woodbridge, was the owner of two lots adjacent to each other in Jackson Addition to the City of Parkersburg, Wood County, West Virginia, designated on a recorded plat as No. 29 and No. 31. By deed dated May 20, 1887, he conveyed one of the lots, described as Lot No. 31, in the belief that the lot described in the deed was Lot No. 29, instead of Lot No. 31, to Mattie E. Woodbridge, who, entertaining a like belief, under the deed took and held adverse possession of Lot No. 29 until she and her husband, William D. Woodbridge, made a deed, by the same description, for the same lot, to Dorr Casto on October 7, 1913. Casto, who was a mere intermediary in the transaction for the purpose of transferring, in accordance with the then existing requirements of law, the title to the real estate from one spouse to the other, by deed executed by him and his wife, dated October 8, 1913, conveyed the same lot, by the same description, to William D. Woodbridge, the husband of Mattie E. Woodbridge. William D. Woodbridge, under the deed from Casto, likewise took and held adverse possession of Lot No. 29, and he and his wife occupied the property until her death in February, 1919, in the belief that Lot No. 29 was the lot described in said deed, instead of Lot No. 31. He continued in possession until his death on January 9, 1939, and by his will he devised to named beneficiaries the property, on which, at the time, were located a two story frame dwelling house and a three story brick apartment. The brick apartment building was numbered 1051 Avery Street and the frame dwelling was numbered 1053 Avery Street. In his will he authorized his personal representative to sell the three story brick building and the lot known as No. 1051 Avery Street and directed the proceeds derived from such sale to be equally divided among his nephews, the plaintiffs, John M. Woodbridge, William Woodbridge Taylor, and William Hopkins Wickes, and he devised the frame building and the lot known as No. 1053 Avery Street to Vera M. Wilkinson, whose interest was later acquired by her husband, the plaintiff, Edward Wilkinson. The possession of Lot No. 29 of Mattie E. Woodbridge and William D. Woodbridge, respectively, under the above mentioned deeds, was open, peaceable, exclusive, visible, uninterrupted and notorious, under claim of title, at all times until the death of William D. Woodbridge.
After the deed dated May 20, 1887, William M. Evans continued to occupy the other lot, described on the plat as Lot No. 31, but by him, and his successors in title, as well as the Woodbridges, believed to be Lot No. 29, and remained in possession of Lot No. 31 until his death during the early part of the year 1902. By his will he devised the same lot to his wife, Martha A. Evans, who, after his death, held and possessed it until her death in August, 1903. By her will she devised it to Julia A. Hopkins, who was her daughter and the mother of Mattie E. Woodbridge; and Julia A. Hopkins held and possessed the lot until she conveyed it, by deed dated September 5, 1905, which was not recorded until January 14, 1909, to Mattie E. Woodbridge, who, under the deed, took possession of Lot No. 31 and continued to hold and possess it until her death on February 16, 1919.
Under the will of Mattie E. Woodbridge, which was construed in a suit which came to this Court, entitled Woodbridge v. Woodbridge, 88 W.Va. 187, 106 S.E. 437, her husband, William D. Woodbridge, took a life estate in the real estate of which she died seized and possessed, with power of conversion, which power he never exercised, and the remainder was vested in her heirs at law, one of whom is the defendant Emma Lyons. The interests of some of the heirs of Mattie E. Woodbridge, in her real estate, were purchased from them by the defendants Emma Lyons and H. B. Lyons, many years before the death of William D. Woodbridge, and the defendant H. B. Lyons, and the heirs of Mattie E. Woodbridge, including the defendant Emma Lyons, both before and after the death of Mattie E. Woodbridge in 1919, until some months after his death in 1939, recognized the ownership of William D. Woodbridge in Lot No. 29, which was described in the deeds under which he held possession as Lot No. 31.
In July, 1939, immediately after the death of William D. Woodbridge, a suit was instituted in the Circuit Court of Wood County by one of the heirs at law of Mattie E. Woodbridge against the Executor of William D. Woodbridge, the other heirs of Mattie E. Woodbridge, and the holders, by deed or assignment, of any interest in her estate, for the purpose of making partition or sale of the real estate of which she died seized. In this suit Emma Lyons and H. B. Lyons were made parties defendant and they appeared and filed their answers. The executor and the beneficiaries under the will of William D. Woodbridge were not parties to such suit for partition.
During the progress of that suit, in July, 1940, it was first discovered by the Executors of William D. Woodbridge and by the defendants Emma Lyons and H. B. Lyons, and by the other parties to the suit, that in the deeds from Evans to Mattie E. Woodbridge, from her and her husband to Casto, and from Casto and his wife to William D. Woodbridge, Lot No. 29, which the Woodbridges had occupied and possessed, was, by mistake, described as Lot No. 31, and that Lot No. 31, conveyed by Julia A. Hopkins to Mattie E. Woodbridge by deed dated September 5, 1905, and occupied and possessed thereafter by Mattie E. Woodbridge, was, also by mistake, described in the deed as, and believed by the parties thereto to be, Lot No. 29. In the partition suit it was decreed that the interest of Mattie E. Woodbridge at the time of her death, which was not then ascertained and determined by the court, in both Lots No. 29 and No. 31, be sold; and such undertermined interest was sold and conveyed to the defendant Emma Lyons by Special Commissioners, appointed for the purpose in said suit, for $1,500 for the interest in Lot No. 29 and for $100 for the interest in Lot No. 31. Some time thereafter the defendants ousted the personal representative and the tenants of the estate of William D. Woodbridge, who had been and were occupying the buildings on Lot No. 29, and entered and took, and now hold, possession of that property.
The defendant Emma Lyons purchased the interest conveyed to her by the Special Commissioners with full knowledge of the claim and the possession of William D. Woodbridge in and to Lot No. 29, and, for that reason, she is not a purchaser for valuable consideration without notice. She continues in possession of Lot No. 29 and the buildings located thereon and, claiming title under the deed of the Special Commissioners, refuses to surrender possession to the plaintiffs or to recognize their claim to the property.
William D. Woodbridge and Mattie E. Woodbridge were married January 7, 1886, and they continued to live together as husband and wife until her death. No children were born of their marriage. At the time Mattie E. Woodbridge took possession of Lot No. 29, believing it to be Lot No. 31, under the deed to her from William M. Evans of May 20, 1887,...
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