Stokes v. Stokes

• Decision Date: 16 May 2008
• Docket Number: 2060887.
• Citation: 58 So.3d 123
• Parties: Frank STOKES, Jr.v.E'STELLA ALEXANDER WEBB COTTRELL et al.E'Stella Alexander Webb Cottrellv.Frank Stokes, Jr.Johnnie Mae Green et al.v.Frank Stokes, Jr.
• Court: Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

58 So.3d 123

Frank STOKES, Jr.

v.E'STELLA ALEXANDER WEBB COTTRELL et al.E'Stella Alexander Webb Cottrell

v.Frank Stokes, Jr.Johnnie Mae Green et al.

v.Frank Stokes, Jr.

2060887.

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

March 14, 2008.Rehearing Applications Denied May 16, 2008.

Joseph W. Warren, Montgomery; and Theron Stokes, Montgomery, for appellant/cross–appellee Frank Stokes, Jr.Joseph T. Scarborough, Jr., and Stephen S. Weldon of Scarborough & Weldon, LLC, Tallassee, for appellants/cross–appellees Johnnie Mae Alexander Green, Lillie Robinson, Oscar C. Alexander, Bertha Mae Humphery, Shirley Alexander, Cathy Alexander, Johnny Alexander, Jr., and Althea Alexander.John Cottle of Becker & Poliakoff, P.A., Fort Walton Beach, Florida, for appellee/cross–appellant E'Stella Alexander Webb Cottrell.MOORE, Judge.

Frank Stokes, Jr., appeals from an April 25, 2007, judgment of the Elmore Circuit Court quieting title to certain property owned by the estate of Estelle Haggerty Alexander (hereinafter referred to as “Estelle”). In its judgment, the trial court quieted title to three of six disputed parcels in the Alexander plaintiffs; the Alexander plaintiffs are identified as follows: E'Stella Alexander Webb Cottrell (hereinafter referred to as “Cottrell”); ¹ Johnnie Mae Green, the widow of Johnny Alexander, Sr. (“Johnny Sr.”); and the children of Johnny Sr., identified as Lillie Robinson, Oscar C. Alexander, Bertha Mae Humphery, Shirley Alexander, Cathy Alexander, Johnny Alexander, Jr. (“Johnny Jr.”), and Althea Alexander. The trial court also quieted title to the other three parcels (hereinafter referred to as the “farmed parcels”) in the “heirs of Larenda Jenkins,” through whom Frank Stokes, Jr., claimed title. Cottrell cross-appealed from that judgment; the remaining Alexander plaintiffs separately cross-appealed. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

Factual Background

During her lifetime, Estelle owned six parcels of land located in Elmore County in the vicinity of Rifle Range Road and Dozier Road. In the complaint to quiet title, the parcels were identified as “parcel 1,” consisting of approximately 100 acres for which Estelle had a deed of record in her name; “parcel 2,” consisting of approximately 11 acres; “parcel 3,” consisting of approximately 4.3 acres; “parcel 4,” consisting of approximately 24 acres; “parcel 5,” consisting of approximately 52 acres; and “parcel 6,” consisting of approximately 79 acres. No deed of record was produced for parcels 2 through 6. The parties stipulated that Estelle owned all six parcels at the time of her death.

During her lifetime, Estelle lived on a portion of parcel 1, the 100–acre tract of land. Also during her lifetime, Estelle took in two infants—Cottrell and Johnny Sr.—whom she raised to adulthood. Cottrell and Johnny Sr. were not related by blood to Estelle or to each other, and Estelle did not legally adopt them. However, at some point before her death, Estelle had a house built for Johnny Sr. and his wife on parcel 1. Cottrell lived in Estelle's house.

Estelle died in 1962; she left no will. She was buried on parcel 1 alongside her husband. Following Estelle's death, both Cottrell and Johnny Sr. continued living on the property. Cottrell continued living in Estelle's house, while Johnny Sr., his wife, Johnnie Mae Green, and their children continued living in the house that Estelle had had built for them on parcel 1.

After Estelle's death in 1962, the Elmore Probate Court appointed Larenda Jenkins, Estelle's cousin and only living relative by blood, as the administrator of Estelle's estate.² Johnny Sr. and Cottrell each filed claims against Estelle's estate in amounts of $7,500 and $5,000, respectively, for personal services rendered to Estelle during her lifetime. Johnny Sr. also challenged Jenkins's appointment as administrator; he filed an action seeking to have himself named as the administrator as the estate's largest creditor.

A third party also challenged Jenkins's appointment as administrator, and the matter was removed to the circuit court. After a hearing in 1963, the challenges to Jenkins's appointment as administrator were dismissed. Although Johnny Sr. voluntarily dismissed his petition, the order resulting from the circuit court's 1963 hearing also recognized that the challenges filed to Jenkins's appointment as administrator were “not well taken” and were “denied.” That order also declared that Jenkins was the administrator of Estelle's estate. No appeal was taken from that order.

Cottrell moved away from the property in approximately 1964 or 1965 and never reestablished a residence thereon. In 1965, Cottrell and Johnny Sr. filed a complaint, alleging that, during her lifetime, Estelle had purchased the six parcels of land for their benefit and that, at the time of Estelle's death, the property was being held in a constructive trust for them.³ In that complaint, Johnny Sr. and Cottrell acknowledged that they were not Estelle's biological or adoptive children.

During the pendency of that 1965 action, Jenkins died intestate; at the time of her death, Jenkins had not closed Estelle's estate. Johnnie Mae Stokes, Jenkins's granddaughter, was then named as the administrator of Estelle's estate. Cottrell and Johnny Sr.'s “constructive trust” action was subsequently dismissed for lack of prosecution.

Johnny Sr. died in 1988; he was buried alongside Estelle. At the time of his death, Johnny Sr.'s wife and several of his children were still living on the property.

Johnnie Mae Stokes, as the administrator of Estelle's estate, paid the property taxes due on the six parcels; the taxes were assessed in the name of the “estate of Estelle Haggerty Alexander.” Also during Johnnie Mae Stokes's administration of Estelle's estate, she leased to third parties the property held in Estelle's estate. The record contains a copy of a 1991 lease entered into by Johnnie Mae Stokes with E.B. Calloway. That lease provided:

“For the sum of $700.00 for 1991 rent, I, Johnnie Mae Stokes, agree to lease E.B. Calloway all the farming and cotton acreage land of Larenda Jenkins and Estelle Alexander, south of the Rifle Range Road and north of the Rifle Range [Road] joining the Griffin land for the sum of $700.00. We reserve the rights to fish and hunt on said property, my family and the family of Johnny Alexander with hunting and fishing rights going to E.B. Calloway south and north of the Rifle Range [Road]. If this land is sold before the year is out, E.B. Calloway will be given the needed time to gather his crop.”

Another such lease for the year 1993, this one between Johnnie Mae Stokes and Colvin Davis, was introduced into evidence; the 1993 lease differed from the 1991 lease only in the names of the parties involved and the amount of rent charged for the lease.

Frank Stokes, Jr., Johnnie Mae Stokes's son, testified that, although other leases could not be located, Johnnie Mae Stokes had leased the property to Calloway and then to Davis repeatedly and continuously during her administration of the estate. Also, according to Oscar Alexander, Johnny Sr. was aware that, during Johnny Sr.'s lifetime, a third party was leasing the property. Oscar believed that the administrator of Estelle's estate, Johnnie Mae Stokes, was responsible for the leases of the property. Because Johnny Sr. died in 1988, it appears that Johnnie Mae Stokes leased the property even before 1991.

Johnnie Mae Stokes died intestate in 1996 without having formally closed Estelle's estate. Although Frank Stokes, Jr., was never appointed administrator of Estelle's estate, he took over the handling of Estelle's estate. He paid the taxes due on the property and he continued to enter into farming, hunting, and fishing leases pertaining to the property with Colvin Davis until Davis's death. At that point, Stokes began entering into leases for the use of the property with Colvin's son, Reese Davis.

In 2002, Cottrell and Oscar Alexander filed a petition, asking the probate court to appoint them as coadministrators of Estelle's estate. In that petition, Cottrell and Oscar Alexander, one of Johnny Sr.'s sons, claimed that they were the daughter and grandson of Estelle, that the estate was open, and that no administrator existed. Cottrell and Oscar also claimed that, other than the Alexander plaintiffs, they knew of no other heirs to Estelle's estate. Cottrell and Oscar did not identify the heirs of Larenda Jenkins as Estelle's kin and heirs at law. Cottrell and Oscar were appointed coadministrators on May 22, 2002.

At some point in 2003, Frank Stokes, Jr., entered into another lease with Reese Davis, granting Davis the right to farm, hunt, and fish on the property in Estelle's estate. However, because a lawyer representing the Alexander plaintiffs contacted Davis and instructed him not to plant his crop that year, no crops were planted in 2003. Stokes did not enter into any subsequent leases because of this litigation.

In April 2003, the Alexander plaintiffs entered into an agreement to sell the property in Estelle's estate to a third party. A judgment was entered by the probate court on August 7, 2003, identifying the Alexander plaintiffs as Estelle's heirs at law and approving the final settlement of Estelle's estate proposed by the Alexander plaintiffs. There is no indication in the record that any of the pleadings filed in this 2002 probate action were ever served on the heirs of Larenda Jenkins.

On July 24, 2003, the Alexander plaintiffs filed this action in the Elmore Circuit Court (“the trial court”) to quiet title to the land owned by Estelle's estate. The Alexander plaintiffs alleged that they held color of title to the property because Johnny Sr. and Cottrell were Estelle's children and that, therefore, they were Estelle's next of kin; the Alexander plaintiffs also alleged that they had been determined to be Estelle's heirs at law in conjunction with the 2002 administration of Estelle's estate....