Town of Ansonia v. Cooper

• Decision Date: 09 July 1894
• Citation: 30 A. 760,64 Conn. 636
• Parties: TOWN OF ANSONIA v. COOPER et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

30 A. 760

64 Conn. 636

TOWN OF ANSONIA

v. COOPER et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 9, 1894.

Appeal from superior court, New Haven county; Prentice, Judge.

Condemnation proceedings by the town of Ansonia to acquire title to certain property for school purposes. The report of the committee appointed for that purpose was accepted, the money paid into court, and defendants Alfred Cooper, Henry G. Ailing, and Elizabeth Downs were cited to Interplead, to determine their respective rights thereto. Defendant Cooper disclaimed any, but, from an order sustaining a demurrer by defendant Downs to his answer and claim, defendant Ailing appeals. Reversed.

V. Munger, for appellant.

Allan W. Paige and George P. Carroll, for appellee Elizabeth Downs.

ANDREWS, C. J. In September, 1891, the town of Ansonia preferred its application to the superior court, in New Haven county, for the appointment of a committee to appraise certain lands in that town, taken for the site of a schoolhouse. The application was duly served, and returned to that court. A committee was appointed, who appraised the said land at the value of $625, and made report of their doings to the court The report was accepted, and the money paid into court, and is now in the hands of the clerk of the court Since the commencement of the proceedings, other parties have been cited in, viz. Henry G. Ailing and Lewis E. Cooper, of Ansonia, and Elizabeth Downs, of Huntington, each of whom claimed or appeared to have some Interest in the said sum of money. The court, in its order accepting the report of the appraisers, decreed that the said Henry G. Ailing, Louis e. Cooper, and Elizabeth Downs interplead with each other as to which of them is legally or equitably entitled to said sum of money. The only controversy in respect to the money is now between Elizabeth Downs, on the one side, and Henry G. Ailing, on the other. Pursuant to the order of the court requiring the parties to Interplead, the said Elizabeth Downs set forth her claims at large; and the said Henry G. Ailing made answer thereto, and set forth his claims, and later an amended and substituted answer and claims, to which said Downs demurred. The court sustained that demurrer, and Ailing has appealed.

The facts, somewhat condensed, from the record, are as follows:

Charles Cooper, the elder, was in his lifetime, and at his death, the owner in fee and in possession of the land described in the said application, and of other adjacent land, all of the value of $2,500. He was also the possessor of personal property to the value of $10,000. By his will he devised the residue of his estate, real and personal, to his wife, Elizabeth Cooper, for her life, and the remainder to his four sons, Alfred Cooper, Charles Cooper, William Cooper, and Henry Cooper, to be theirs absolutely, in equal shares. The land in question came to said Elizabeth Cooper by virtue of said will. The said Charles Cooper died about March 20, 1876. On the 31st day of July, 1880, the said Elizabeth Cooper conveyed all said lands, by a warranty deed, to Henry and Augusta Rolf, and received therefor the sum of $2,500, which was its full value, Including the fee as well as the life estate. That deed was immediately put on record. The grantees entered into possession, and they and their grantees have ever since kept the possession thereof, to the time the condemnation proceedings were completed. By sundry conveyances, the title and interest conveyed by the said deed of Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper has come to, and is now vested in, Henry G. Ailing, who purchased in 1886, subsequent to the agreement between the four sons of Mrs. Cooper, below stated. Mrs. Cooper died in 1885, leaving no property of her own, of any kind. Of the $2,500 which she received for the said land, she had expended $1,300 In her necessary support. The balance, $1,200, she had in her possession at her death. After the commencement of the condemnation proceedings, Alfred Cooper assigned to the said Elizabeth Downs all his interest in the money that might be awarded thereby. She has no other title thereto than by said assignment. Upon the decease of the said Elizabeth Cooper, it was verbally agreed by and between Alfred Cooper, Charles Cooper, William Cooper, and Henry Cooper—they being of full age, and being the only parties entitled to the property and estate devised to them under the will of the said Charles Cooper, deceased—that they would pay all the debts and funeral expenses from and out of the said $1,200, and would thereupon divide among themselves, in equal portions, the balance of said sum of $1,200, and would divide among themselves, in equal portions, the personal property owned by the said Charles Cooper at the time of his decease, and valued at the sum of $10,000, and, upon such payment and such division being made, that they would consider the amount so divided and received as a full, final, and complete distribution and settlement of any and all rights, titles, and interests, claims and demands, which they, or either of them, were entitled to receive under and by virtue of the provisions of the last will of the said Charles Cooper.

The money that was thus agreed to...