Taysom v. Taysom

• Decision Date: 16 February 1960
• Docket Number: No. 8803,8803
• Citation: 349 P.2d 556,82 Idaho 58
• Parties: Reoma TAYSOM, Respondent, v. Ray TAYSOM, Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 556

349 P.2d 556

82 Idaho 58

Reoma TAYSOM, Respondent, v. Ray TAYSOM, Appellant.

No. 8803.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

Feb. 16, 1960.

L. H. Merrill, Idaho Falls, for appellant.

Holden, Holden & Kidwell, Idaho Falls, for respondent.

SMITH, Justice.

Reoma Taysom, respondent and cross-appellant in the pending appeal, and plaintiff in a divorce action consummated during March, 1952, in the Ninth Judicial District Court in and for Bonneville County, is hereinafter referred to as respondent.

Ray Taysom, appellant and cross-respondent in the pending appeal, and defendant in the referred to divorce action, is hereinafter referred to as appellant.

The parties, respondent and appellant, March 15, 1952, executed a written stipulation, which they designated a property settlement agreement, in the presence of their counsel, reciting that should the Ninth Judicial District Court in and for Bonneville County grant respondent a decree of divorce from appellant in the divorce action, then pending in the court, the parties would divide and settle their community property interests as set out in the instrument. The closing covenant of the parties recites in part:

'The aforesaid Property Settlement Agreement is a full and complete settlement of all claims and/or property rights of every kind and character growing out of said marriage that either party may have against the other * * *.'

March 19, 1952, the district court granted respondent a divorce from appellant; the court, in its decree, made a finding relating to a property settlement, as follows:

'The parties hereto have heretofore settled * * * and have agreed between themselves as to a just and amicable settlement of all their property rights and that there are no property rights * * * to be decreed to either party in this suit.'

The parties, by their property settlement agreement, divided equally the livestock and made disposition of certain other community interests. They then disposed of their 80 acre farm in Bonneville County, respondent to receive the south 30 acres and the improvements which included the family home, outside buildings, corrals and a deep well equipped with a pressure system, and appellant to receive the north 50 acres, unimproved except for fences and ditches. The day following the granting of the divorce appellant conveyed to respondent the south 30 acres of the farm, and in due time respondent conveyed the north 50 acres to appellant. Each party took possession of his or her property agreed upon in the property settlement. Appellant then leased his portion of the farm to his son and temporarily left the premises.

The property settlement agreement contains the following provision:

'* * * the defendant shall have the right to move a small house from its present location on the property herein agreed to be his and shall have the right to connect up a water line to the line now going into the main house located on the property to be decreed to the plaintiff.'

The small house referred to was situate upon the south 30 acres of the land retained by respondent. During 1953, about a year after the property settlement and divorce, appellant moved this house, placing it upon a lot which he owned situate in the City of Idaho Falls.

Appellant in the spring of 1958 terminated the lease of his 50 acres with his son and commenced farming the land himself. During the fall of that year, after irrigation water had been turned out of the canals, appellant connected into respondent's well by extending a pipe line in a trench which he caused to be dug, about four or five feet in depth, a distance of about 200 feet across respondent's land to appellant's land, basing his right so to do upon the last above quoted provision of the property settlement agreement.

Respondent thereupon commenced this action claiming trespass in and upon her land by appellant and seeking recovery of $1,000 damages; additionally respondent sought to enjoin appellant from further digging into or interfering with her land and that appellant be required to replace her premises in their original condition.

Appellant answered, denying the material allegations of the complaint.

At the conclusion of a trial without a jury, the court in its findings of fact referred to the March 15, 1952, stipulation which purported to be a full and final property settlement between the parties, and found that the divorce decree of March 19, 1952, did not incorporate therein any of the terms of the settlement agreement; also, that the divorce decree recited that there were no property rights to be settled between the parties. The court then found that the provisions of the settlement agreement, '* * * the defendant shall have the right to connect up a water line to the line now going into the main house located on the property to be decreed to the plaintiff,' relied upon by appellant for recovery in his favor, to be 'uncertain and ambiguous in that they recite none of the specifications, conditions or qualifications of such installation and are so vague and ambiguous as to be void.'

The court then decreed with reference to this particular subject matter, as follows:

'That said defendant's entry was based upon a contract that was vague and ambiguous insofar as said contract pertained to the installation of a water line. That said contract provisions relative to installation of said water line be, and they hereby are declared void and of no force and effect.'

The court when entered its judgment requiring appellant to remove the water line and to restore respondent's land to its former condition within five days of the date of entry of the decree, and awarding nominal damage of $1 to respondent against appellant together with respondent's costs.

Appellant perfected an appeal from the judgment. Respondent cross-appealed from that portion of the judgment awarding her only nominal damages.

Appellant assigns the following error:

'The Court erred in not taking judicial notice of his own affirmative action and approval of the contract settling the community property rights of the parties in the preceding divorce action as those rights were affected in this cause of action.'

Appellant contends that when the trial court accepted the March 15, 1952, stipulation as the property settlement agreement of the parties settling their community property interests, the court found the agreement to be valid and that its validity cannot now be questioned. We cannot agree with such contention. The property settlement agreement was not nor were any of its provisions incorporated into the divorce decree. The court's finding mentions only that the parties had settled their property rights between themselves. From such a finding it does not follow that the court had approved or disapproved the settlement agreement. Accordingly the issue as to its validity is not res judicata in the action under consideration here. Sanborn v. Sanborn, 3 Cal.App.2d 437, 39 P.2d 830.

Where the terms of the property settlement agreement are not incorporated into the divorce decree, the agreement must be treated as a contract independent of the decree, and the obligations imposed under the contract are not those imposed by the decree, but by contract. Bainbridge v. Bainbridge, 75 Idaho 13, 265 P.2d 662; Roberts...