Walker v. Hanke
| Decision Date | 01 June 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. WD,WD |
| Citation | 992 S.W.2d 925 |
| Parties | Joseph E. WALKER Respondent, v. Pamela Jo and Karl HANKE Appellants. 55559. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
William Michael Quitmeier, Kansas City, for appellants.
Steven Wendell White, Independence, for respondent.
Before Presiding Judge JAMES M. SMART, Judge FOREST W. HANNA and Judge LAURA DENVIR STITH.
Defendants-Appellants Pamela Jo and Karl Hanke appeal from the trial court's judgment in favor of Plaintiff-Respondent, Joseph E. Walker, on his claims for conversion, false imprisonment, punitive damages and injunctive relief. The Hankes claim the trial court erred: 1) in finding that they converted $180,000 belonging to Mr. Walker because the money was a gift to Pamela Jo; 2) in refusing to dismiss Karl from the lawsuit because insufficient evidence supported the claims against him; 3) in refusing to admit evidence as to Mr. Walker's failure to pay certain creditors because, they alleged, he fraudulently transferred the money to Pamela Jo to avoid those creditors; 4) in granting injunctive relief to Mr. Walker because the award of money damages was an adequate remedy at law; 5) in finding in favor of Mr. Walker for false imprisonment because he was not intentionally restrained; and 6) in awarding punitive damages because there was no evidence of malice.
On November 25, 1995, Mr. Walker called his daughter, Pamela Jo Hanke, to tell her he was getting a divorce from his current wife. At his request, Pamela Jo came to North Carolina, where Mr. Walker lived, and brought him back to her home in Kansas City, Missouri. Because of a medical condition, Mr. Walker could not walk and needed assistance. Although Mr. Walker did not get along well with Pamela Jo's husband, Karl Hanke, he moved in with the Hankes the following month, and he gave his daughter power of attorney to handle his business affairs.
Not long after Mr. Walker began living with his daughter, he received approximately $30,000 in his divorce settlement, $25,000 of which he placed into a joint account in his and his daughter's name. Mr. Walker used part of the money he received in the divorce settlement to convert the Hankes' lower level into an apartment in which he could live.
On March 18, 1996, Mr. Walker was involved in a serious automobile accident. Pamela Jo was at her father's bedside and helped nurse him back to health. After a lengthy hospital stay, Mr. Walker returned to live with the Hankes. At his request, some of the remaining funds from his divorce settlement were used to remodel the Hankes' home to make it handicap accessible. This enabled him to enter and leave through a separate wheelchair accessible entrance in the yard. At Mr. Walker's request, the Hankes also put a fence with a gate around their yard.
Pamela Jo continued to care for her father, and took an active role in proceeding with his personal injury lawsuit, including finding her father a personal injury lawyer, Pat Starke. In November 1996, Mr. Walker settled his personal injury claim for approximately $900,000. According to Mr. Walker's attorney, Mr. Starke, Mr. Walker was directly paid only $243,000; the remainder of the settlement proceeds were used to pay Mr. Walker's attorney's fees and expenses as well as to pay off other bills. This included payment of Mr. Walker's medical bills from St. Joseph's hospital pursuant to an agreement which Mr. Starke had worked out with the hospital. Because Mr. Walker was concerned that IRS tax liens might exist against him, Mr. Starke also checked to see whether any such liens existed, and determined that they did not at the time of the settlement.
Mr. Walker put his share of the settlement funds into an account in Pamela Jo's name. Pamela Jo testified Mr. Walker did this so he could keep the funds out of the hands of his creditors, and she also testified, rather inconsistently, that he did so because he wanted to make a gift to her of the money. Mr. Walker testified that he never intended to make a gift of the money to her, but admitted that he did not want to have the cash in his name, even though he did not agree that he was trying to avoid paying his creditors. And, as noted, Mr. Starke testified that the health care providers and Medicare personnel knew that he represented Mr. Walker in the personal injury lawsuit and would have contacted him if there were any problems with bills or liens, but that he was aware of none, and all known creditors were paid out of the remainder of the $900,000 in settlement funds.
Mr. Walker testified that from the day he received his $243,000 portion of the settlement, the Hankes badgered him about it, saying he needed to get the money into an account bearing a high interest rate. Karl Hanke is in the insurance business. Karl and Pamela Jo told Mr. Walker that they were going to purchase annuities on his behalf, and Karl stated that he would cut his commission so Mr. Walker could earn more interest. At their insistence, Mr. Walker allowed them to buy two $90,000 annuities from a California company with $180,000 of the settlement money. It was Mr. Walker's understanding that he could live off the interest from these annuities, and that he could get the interest every year without affecting the principal.
Mr. Walker told Pamela Jo that he wanted to give her $25,000 for keeping and caring for him in 1997. Pamela Jo replied that she would just write checks out of his checkbook periodically instead. However, when Mr. Walker noticed Pamela Jo had spent $10,000 in 18 days, he asked her to take the $15,000 balance and open her own account instead of writing more checks on his account. He then called the California company to check on his annuities and learned that both annuities were 10-year annuities, which would pay no income to the beneficiary for 10 years, and they could not be cashed without paying a 10% penalty of $18,000.
Mr. Walker also found out that, although he was listed as the beneficiary on the annuities, they were not in his name and he could not cash them. They were in the name of Pamela Jo. Mr. Walker therefore told Pamela Jo that he had no idea that she and Karl were going to invest his money in 10-year annuities, and that in light of his health condition, he felt he would not live 10 more years. Mr. Walker asked Pamela Jo and Karl to cash in the annuities so that he could take the money and move to Florida to live with his sister.
Mr. Walker further testified that his daughter and her husband refused to cash in the annuities, claiming that this was because they did not want to trigger payment of the $18,000 in penalties this would cause. Pamela Jo and Karl told him that when he needed the money for a nursing home they would get the money for him. Mr. Starke testified that he had conversations with Pamela Jo regarding Mr. Walker's desire to cash in the two annuities she purchased, and that Pamela Jo told him also that she was concerned about her father's well-being, and whether he would have any money to take care of himself later in life. Mr. Starke said that he told Pamela Jo that it was Mr. Walker's money, and if he wanted to cash in the annuities she would have to let him, however, she refused to do so. Pamela Jo never mentioned to Mr. Starke that she thought Mr. Walker had given her the money as a gift, nor did Mr. Walker tell him the money was a gift. It was Mr. Starke's understanding that Pamela Jo had her father's power of attorney and the money was placed in her name to be used for Mr. Walker's benefit.
Shortly after the events occurred involving the annuities, Mr. Walker tried to meet with an attorney to consult about suing the Hankes for taking his settlement money and refusing to cash the annuities. They refused to let the attorney into their home to meet with Mr. Walker and told Mr. Walker that if he left to meet with the attorney, he would not be welcome back and his things would be removed from the house. For this reason, a few weeks later, in late April 1997, Mr. Walker revoked his power of attorney, changed his will, and told the Hankes he was moving to Florida to live with his sister. His sister came to get him and he did move to Florida to live with her, taking with him the remaining portion of his personal injury settlement from his bank account.
Although the Hankes had told Mr. Walker they did not want to cash in the annuities because they did not want to pay the 10% penalty, after they had their falling out with him they in fact did cash in the annuities. They did not pay the money over to him as he had requested, however. Instead, without his permission, they used most of the money to pay their own taxes, for tithing, to pay off the amount they owned on one of their vehicles, to pay off their own credit accounts, to buy clothes and food, and to take a vacation to Switzerland. By the time of their depositions, they claimed that they still had only approximately $32,000 of the $180,000 in their home. They had records for only about $60,000 of the remainder of the money. They were thus unable to account for $85,000 to $90,000 of the remaining money from the annuities, except to say that they had spent it in the little more than 60 days since they had cashed out the annuities.
The case was tried to the court. The court found in favor of Mr. Walker on his claims for conversion against both defendants and awarded him actual damages of $180,000 and punitive damages of $25,000. The court found in favor of Mr. Walker and against both defendants on his false imprisonment claim and awarded him actual damages of $1,000 and punitive damages of $1,000. The court also granted injunctive relief to prevent the Hankes from spending any of the proceeds of the two annuities which still remained in their possession and ordered them to pay these proceeds into court. The Hankes appeal.
We will not disturb the trial court...
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