Steffens v. Pollard, 15371

• Decision Date: 21 November 1958
• Docket Number: No. 15371,15371
• Citation: 319 S.W.2d 447
• Parties: Mrs. C. Louis STEFFENS, a Widow, Appellant, v. Harry S. POLLARD, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 447

319 S.W.2d 447

Mrs. C. Louis STEFFENS, a Widow, Appellant, v. Harry S. POLLARD, Appellee.

No. 15371.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Dallas.

Nov. 21, 1958.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 9, 1959.

Harold W. McCracken, Dallas, for appellant.

Cofer & Cofer, Austin, for appellee.

DIXON, Chief Justice.

Appellee Harry S. Pollard, filed this suit in the nature of a bill of review September 12, 1956 against Appellant, Mrs. C. Louis Steffens to set aside a 1953 judgment of the Probate Court on the grounds of mutual mistake of law. The relief sought was denied in the Probate Court and appellee appealed to the District Court where after a trial before the court without a jury judgment was rendered in most part in favor of appellee Pollard.

Appellant, Mrs. C. Louis Steffens is the surviving widow of C. Louis Steffens who died intestate March 3, 1953. No children were born of their marriage. The deceased had been married twice. Appellee Harry S. Pollard, born in the year 1906, is the son and only child of C. Louis Steffens by his first marriage. Appellee's parents were divorced when appellee was about a year and half old and his custody was awarded to his mother. Later his mother married D. M. Pollard, and appellee was reared in their home. When he was about sixteen years of age he had his legal name changed from Steffens to Pollard.

Following the death of C. Louis Steffens in 1953 appellant and appellee, stepmother and stepson, who were apparently on friendly terms and were the only heirs of deceased, agreed on a division and distribution of the estate of C. Louis Steffens, deceased. In a nonadversary proceeding in the Probate Court of Dallas County a consent decree was entered approving the division and distribution.

The property involved in this controversy, which is only a part of the property divided by the consent decree, is as follows:

(1) Building and Loan Shares of a value of $40,000.00. The certificates to these shares expressly provided that the account was a joint account 'as joint tenants, with the right of survivorship as at common law, and not as tenants in common.'

(2) Federal Credit Union Deposits of value of $1,102.24. The deposit agreement expressly provided for joint ownership 'with right of survivorship'.

(3) United States Savings Bonds, Series E, of a value of $2,005.50, payable to 'C. Louis Steffens or Mrs. Edith T. Steffens.' Mrs. Edith T. Steffens is one and the same person as appellant Mrs. C. Louis Steffens.

All of the above described property, though it was purchased with community funds, was awarded in 1953 in the original probate consent decree, to appellant, Mrs. C. Louis Steffens, because of the survivorship provisions in the building and loan certificates and credit union deposit agreements, and because the Series E bonds were made payable to C. Louis Steffens or Mrs. Edith T. Steffens.

In 1956 in the trial of the bill of review in the District Court, the court found that the parties, appellant and appellee, had innocently based the 1953 consent decree in probate court on a mutual mistake of law, both of them mistakenly believing that because of the survivorship clauses in the building and loan and credit union agreements, the surviving spouse was legally entitled to all the building and loan shares and all of the credit union deposits; whereas the community interest of the deceased in the property should have gone to the estate of deceased and to his heir at law, his son Pollard. However the court found that there had been no mistake as to the Series E bonds because under the United States Treasury Regulations the surviving spouse was entitled to take all the bonds since the bonds were expressly made payable to either spouse. Accordingly judgment was rendered to the effect that appellee Pollard, as only child of deceased, C. Louis Steffens, was entitled to one-half of the building and loan stock and one-half of the credit union deposit; but that appellant Mrs. C. Louis Steffens was entitled to retain all of the Series E bonds.

Both parties have appealed from adverse parts of the judgment.

In explanation of his own part of the alleged mutual mistake of law appellee Pollard, who is an attorney at law, says that at the time he agreed to the division of the property in 1953 he had read and accepted as a correct statement of law the holdings in the case of Chandler v. Kountze, Tex.Civ.App., 130 S.W.2d 327, and Shroff v. Deaton, Tex.Civ.App., 220 S.W.2d 489. It was not until 1955 that this Court in the case of Reed v. Reed, Tex.Civ.App., 283 S.W.2d 311 held that a survivorship...