Turner v. Turner

• Decision Date: 29 May 1961
• Docket Number: No. 41828,41828
• Citation: 130 So.2d 871,241 Miss. 444
• Parties: John TURNER and Cassie Lee Turner v. Willie TURNER et al.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 871

130 So.2d 871

241 Miss. 444

John TURNER and Cassie Lee Turner v. Willie TURNER et al.

No. 41828.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

May 29, 1961.

Dent, Ward, Martin & Terry, Vicksburg, for appellants.

B. D. Statham, Magnolia, for appellees.

LEE, Presiding Justice.

Willie Turner and others, being five brothers and sisters or their heirs, filed their bill of complaint in the Chancery Court of Pike County against John Turner, their other brother, and others. Simply stated, the complainants alleged that they were the owners of 12.245/34 of all oil, gas and other minerals in and under the 34 acres of land, as described in the bill. They charged that John Turner, his grantees and assigns, were claiming this interest as a result of mistake, inadvertence, incorrect legal conclusions, and the fraud of John Turner. They accordingly sought to have themselves declared to be the owners of such interest, and to have their title thereto quieted and confirmed as against the defendants.

The answers of the defendants denied the material allegations of the bill, and the cross-bills, embraced therein, not only denied the allegations, but sought to have title to all oil, gas and other minerals in and under said land quieted and confirmed in them, their grantees, and assigns. They also set up a number of pleas by way of special defenses.

Cutting through the maze of elaborate pleadings, the decisive issue was whether the defendants' ownership of minerals in question extended over 34 acres or only 17 acres. The trial court awarded the relief prayed for by the complainants, and John Turner and his wife, Cassie, appealed.

The litigation arose in this way: William Turner died June 7, 1930. At the time of his death, he owned 120 acres of land in Pike County. He was survived by Leander Turner, his widow, and Willie Turner, Walter T. Turner, Rosco Turner, Rosia Lee Turner, Synovia Turner, and John Turner, sons and daughters.

While the bill charged that William Turner died intestate, and the answer of the defendants admitted the truthfulness of that allegation, yet John, Synovia Walter T., Rosco, and Willie--all of the children of the decedent living at the time of the trial--testified that their father willed the 120 acres of land to their mother, Leander. They said that the will disappeared after their father's death. No effort had ever been made to prove the content and sufficiency thereof, or to establish and probate the same as the last will and testament of the decedent. Near the close of the case, the motion of the defendants to amend their answers so as to say that William Turner died testate was sustained. However the trial judge stated, in a memorandum, that he was unable to establish a will from what he had heard in evidence on the trial. Thus, in the absence of a will, it followed that each of the seven named survivors, according to the laws of descent and distribution, actually inherited an undivided one-seventh interest in the 120 acre tract.

On April 12, 1938, Leander Turner, the widow, executed to B. C. Williams a deed to an undivided one-half interest in the oil, gas and other minerals under 80 acres of the land; and to Sam Letwin a like deed to an undivided one-half interest in the oil, gas and other minerals under the other 40 acres. Both of these deeds were duly recorded. Several of the children remembered the occasion, but, according to their testimony, their mother thought she was executing a mere lease.

John had loaned his father $350 to build the house in which the family lived. In addition, he paid off a deed of trust in the amount of $250, which his father had executed on the land and which remained unpaid at the time of his death. Besides he had also paid $90 on his father's burial expenses. There had never been any reimbursement to John on account of those payments.

On December 8, 1939, Leander executed six deeds by which she conveyed and warranted the 120 acres in separate portions to her six children, at the same time reserving a life estate in each parcel. The conveyances to Willie, Rosco, Rosia Lee, and Synovia were each for 17 acres. The conveyance to Walter T. was for 17 acres, plus a loosely described one care as a house site. The deed to John was for 34 acres with the loosely described one acre to Walter T. excepted. Obviously Leander had made this preference in favor of John because of the expenditures, described above. Minerals were not mentioned in these deeds.

On February 10, 1942, Leander died. The six children, heretofore named, were her sole heirs at law.

In 1948, when Rosco attempted to borrow some money on his 17 acres, the defect in his title was discovered because of the deed from his mother only and not from the other heirs also. In these circumstances, the six brothers and sisters engaged Hon. J. H. Price, Jr., and attorney of Magnolia, Mississippi, to prepare deeds so that each of them, by a deed from all of the others, would be vested with full title to his parcel of the land. To that end, the lawyer drafted the deeds, using the same descriptions that appeared in the deeds to the parties from their mother, Leander. In each instance, there were five grantors and one grantee, thus accounting for the interests of all of the six heirs. The deeds, warranting the title in each instance, were executed and acknowledged by the grantors on November 13, 1948, and, in due course, were filed for record. Minerals were not mentioned in those deeds of conveyances.

Following the execution and delivery of those deeds, thereafter, on December 22, 1948, Walter T. and Rosia Lee conveyed one-half of the minerals under their separately owned tracts of land to O. R. Meadows. But, upon examination of the title, the mineral conveyances of Leander Turner to B. C. Williams and Sam Letwin, heretofore mentioned, were found to be of record.

Thereafter these six Turner children employed the law firm of Roach and Jones to recover the minerals. On December 31, 1948, the attorneys filed a bill of complaint in the Chancery Court of Pike County in Cause No. 13,570, in the names of the six children by Roach and Jones as their attorneys. It was alleged that these six complainants were the legal and equitable owners of 120 acres of land, describing it according to governmental subdivisions, 'with each of the complainants owning a separate and distinct portion of said 120 acres as will be hereinafter shown'. Thereafter these separate and distinct portions were set out in the bill just as they had been described in the deeds from Leander Turner of December 8, 1939, and in the deeds to each other of November 13, 1948. The bill charged fraud on the part of Williams and Letwin in procuring said deeds and sought the cancellation of those instruments. Alternatively, there was a prayer that, at all events, the defendants should be decreed to have acquired only a one-seventh interest inasmuch as that was the extent of Leander's part, and that the complainants should be declared as 'the owner of the remaining six-sevenths interest' in the minerals. The lawyers for the complainants and the defendants tentatively agreed upon a compromise of the matter whereby the interest of the defendants was reduced to one-seventh of the minerals. On February 14, 1949, Attorney Jones wrote a letter to each of the six Turners apprising them that the case could be settled in that manner; that if this was done 'each of you will then have a clear title to your minerals in the land'; that the parties would be able to deal with their minerals as they desired; and that, if they were willing to settle on those terms, they should come to his office and sign the deed to the attorneys for mineral acres in payment of the fee, in accordance with their agreement. Pursuant to that notice, the Turners went to the law office, signed the mineral deed for the fee, and authorized the settlement. Attorney Jones testified that 'I knew each one (of the Turners) was going to end up according to my impression with only six-sevenths interest in the minerals in their respective deeds'.

The decree, effectuating the settlement in that cause, was approved by the lawyers for the complainants and for the defendants and was signed by the Chancellor under date of March 14, 1949. It adjudicated that the defendants, Williams and Letwin, were the owners of an undivided one-seventh interest in the oil, gas and other minerals in and under the 120 acres, and, in addition, that 'the remaining six-sevenths interest in all of the oil, gas and other minerals in, on and under said lands, is vested in the complainants on the basis of each of the complainants owning an undivided one-seventh interest therein'. When Attorney Jones was asked whether he or Mr. Ward, counsel for the defendants, put the above language in the decree, he replied, 'I think I am the guilty party'. He also stated that the extent of the authority of his firm was to file suit to cancel the two outstanding mineral deeds to Williams and Letwin.

The record discloses that, from the date of the decree of March 14, 1949, until the filing of this lawsuit, almost ten years, these parties have executed instruments which affected the title to their lands and minerals in which they either used the same descriptions which were employed in the deeds of their mother, Leander, and their deeds to each other of date of December 8, 1939, and November 13, 1948, respectively, or such descriptions were embraced within the descriptions of those deeds. The number of instruments so executed were as follows: Willie Turner, 4; Walter T. Turner, 7; Rosia Lee Turner Allen and her heirs, 6; Rosco Turner, 5; Synovia Turner Sartin, 4; and John Turner, 2. Besides there was also introduced in evidence delay rental receipts for 9 years covering deposits made by Southern Natural Gas Company to Walter T. Turner and Rosia Lee Turner, as a result of their conveyances to O. R. Meadows, which passed to the Gas Company; a like delay...