Wallace v. King

• Citation: 170 S.W.2d 377,205 Ark. 681
• Decision Date: 12 April 1943
• Docket Number: 4-7043
• Parties: WALLACE v. KING
• Court: Supreme Court of Arkansas

170 S.W.2d 377

205 Ark. 681

WALLACE v. KING

4-7043

Supreme Court of Arkansas

April 12, 1943

Appeal from St. Francis Chancery Court; A. L. Hutchins, Chancellor affirmed.

Decree affirmed.

Norton & Butler, for appellant.

Roy D Campbell, for appellee.

OPINION

ROBINS, J.

Appellants, Miss Byrd Wallace and Mrs. Mamie. Edwards, daughters and sole heirs at law of J. M. Wallace, deceased, instituted separate, but identical actions, consolidated for trial in the lower court, to enforce specific performance of a compromise agreement alleged to have been entered into between appellants and appellees, Mrs. Mattie King, John Pryor, Jobe Pryor, Jake Pryor, Elizabeth Elliott, Claude Pilkington and Dartha Cameron, and to recover the balance claimed to be due to appellant for rent on two hundred forty acres in St. Francis county, Arkansas, inherited by appellants from their deceased father.

J. M. Wallace died intestate in 1908 leaving surviving him his widow, Lillie Wallace, and his two daughters, Mamie Wallace and Byrd Wallace, appellants, who were then respectively thirteen and two years of age. At the time of his death he owned one hundred sixty acres upon which he resided and another eighty-acre tract not contiguous to the homestead. His widow, Mrs. Lillie Wallace, married Arch Pryor in 1910 and, for some time after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Pryor and the two Wallace children lived on the 160-acre tract. Thereafter they moved to Mr. Pryor's residence in Hughes, Arkansas, where Mrs. Pryor died in January, 1938, and Pryor died in May, 1940. Pryor worked both tracts of land up until the death of Mrs. Pryor, and for the year 1938, and cleared up and put into cultivation a considerable amount of the land.

On January 17, 1940, Pryor, who had no children, executed a will in which he made bequests of $ 1,000 to his sister, Mrs. Mattie King, $ 500 each to his brothers, John Pryor and Jobe Pryor, his nephew, Jake Pryor, and his stepdaughter, Byrd Wallace, $ 100 each to his stepdaughter, Mamie Edwards, and Claude Pilkington, $ 400, and certain real estate to Elizabeth Elliott, $ 250 to Mrs. Mary Clinton, $ 300 and an automobile to Dartha Cameron, and $ 50 and a trailer to May Henderson; and it was provided in his will that, after payment of these specific legacies, his estate should be divided among all the above named legatees in the same proportion as that borne by their respective bequests. He owned at his death a substantial amount of cash and other personalty, several rent houses and other real estate.

After Pryor's death appellants prepared an agreement under the terms of which they were to release their claim for rent alleged to be due them from Pryor for the use of their deceased father's land during the years 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938, in consideration that all the other legatees under the Pryor will would convey to them their interests in the Pryor residence in Hughes, said to be valued at $ 4,000, and that each of appellants should be paid the sum of $ 1,000 in cash. This agreement was signed by Miss Byrd Wallace, Mrs. George H. Edwards (formerly Mamie Wallace), George H. Edwards, Mattie King, Jake Pryor, Jobe Pryor, John Pryor, Elizabeth Elliott, Claude Pilkington, Dartha Cameron, and Mrs. Evelyn Johnson as mother and natural guardian of Claude Pilkington, a minor; and John Pryor, Jobe Pryor and Jake Pryor and their wives executed a deed to appellants on June 29, 1940, conveying their shares in the residence property at Hughes. The compromise agreement was never signed by May Henderson or Mrs. Mary Clinton.

Being unable to procure the execution of the agreement by all of the legatees appellants prepared, verified and duly presented to C. R. Ransom, executor of Pryor's estate, identical claims, each for the sum of $ 3,053.99 which appellants alleged was the balance due to each of them by Pryor at the time of his death for rent of the land in question for the years 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938, after allowing credit for $ 1,400 which Pryor paid to appellants on October 24, 1938, and certain other credits. The executor of Pryor's estate formally disallowed both of the claims, and, as far as the record shows, these claims were not thereafter filed with or presented to the probate court for allowance.

In the complaints in the cases at bar, filed on February 8, 1941, appellants set up the indebtedness due by Pryor to them for the use of their land, the partially executed compromise agreement, and the facts as to the making and presentation of the claims against the estate; and the prayer of these complaints was that the court order that the compromise agreement be specifically performed by all of the legatees who executed same, but had not carried same out, and that, after proper credit was allowed for the value of the real estate which appellants would thus acquire, the executor of Pryor's estate be required to pay to them the remainder of the amount due to them on their claims under the compromise agreement, and to charge up the proper proportion thereof to the various legatees, all of whom were made defendants. Appellees in their answers denied that appellants had any valid claims against the estate of Arch Pryor, and alleged that the signatures to the compromise agreement and the execution of the deed by some of appellees had been obtained by fraudulent representation made by appellants as to the validity of appellants' claims against the estate of Arch Pryor and as to the value of the property to be conveyed to appellants under the compromise agreement. Appellees pleaded the statute of limitations against any claim for rent for the years 1935 and 1936, and further alleged that the rents for 1935, 1936 and 1937 belonged to Mrs. Pryor and had been received by Mrs. Pryor, and that Arch Pryor had paid to appellants the rents for the year 1938 in the sum of $ 1,400; and they prayed that the compromise agreement, as well as the deed executed by John Pryor, Jobe Pryor, and Jake Pryor and their wives, be canceled. The chancery court dismissed both complaints for want of equity, and ordered that the deed executed on June 29, 1940, by John Pryor and wife, Jobe Pryor and wife, and Jake Pryor and wife should be canceled; and to reverse this decree this appeal is prosecuted.

The lower court made no specific findings of fact, and it does not appear from the decree on what particular ground the lower court held that the compromise agreement was invalid. The principal ground of invalidity set up in the pleadings was that the execution of this compromise agreement had been procured by fraud and misrepresentation, and there was evidence to support a finding to this effect. The brothers the sister and the nephew of Pryor, who were his nearest...