Walters v. Lawless

• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PER CURIAM
• Citation: Walters v. Lawless, 381 S.W.2d 843 (Mo. 1964)
• Decision Date: 13 July 1964
• Docket Number: No. 2,No. 50167,50167,2
• Parties: Charles Lee WALTERS and Nancy Jane Walters Stevens, a minor, by Eloise Walters, her Guardian, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. H. L. LAWLESS, Odist Low, and the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, a Corporation, Defendants-Appellants

Page 843

381 S.W.2d 843

Charles Lee WALTERS and Nancy Jane Walters Stevens, a minor by Eloise Walters, her Guardian, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. H. L. LAWLESS, Odist Low, and the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, a Corporation Defendants-Appellants.

No. 50167.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

July 13, 1964.

Motion for Rehearing and to Transfer to Court En Banc Denied

Sept. 14, 1964.

C. A. Powell, Powell, Jones & Ringer, Dexter, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Wayne B. Wright, Henry C. Bryan, Jr., McDonald, Barnard, Wright & Timm, St. Louis, Joe Welborn, Bloomfield, Claude Arnold, Dexter, James E. Spain, Briney & Welborn, Bloomfield, for defendants-appellants.

BARRETT, Commissioner.

This is another case with its origin in that everlastingly vexatious phrase, this time in a 1913 will, 'heirs of the body.' The plaintiffs are the great-grandchildren of the 1913 testator John N. Miller. His will, insofar as material, devised his land in fractional shares to his daughters, here to his daughter Minnie a one-sixth fractional interest for life 'with remainder to the heirs of their bodies.' By reason of the several fractional devises and alleged ambiguities Mr. Miller's executors instituted a suit, joining his wife and children, to construe the will. The will was construed resulting in a finding, subject to certain adjustments to bring about equality in value, that all real estate should be valued as a whole 'and divided into six equal parts, one of which should then be conveyed to each of said adult devisees, whether in fee, or only for life with remainder to others.' Following this decree the widow and all other devisees of John N. Miller, together with their spouses, on September 7, 1914, executed a deed, the parties now call it a partition deed, by which they conveyed 290.21 acres to Minnie Walters 'during her life with the remainder to the heirs of her body as devisees under the will of John N. Miller.' It does not appear what became of the balance of the 290.21 acres, but in 1936 two separate eighty acre parcels of the tract were sold under the Jones-Munger Act for delinquent taxes for the years 1930-1935 to A. and Estelle Sophian. The Sophians assigned these certificates, one for $276.77 and the other for $419.98, to M. L. Manion and accordingly in 1938 the Collector of Stoddard County executed deeds conveying the 160 acres to Mr. Manion. The next step was that on November 24, 1937, Minnie B. Walters the daughter and devisee of John N. Miller (then single and aged 58 years) and grantee in the 1914 deed, together with her only son Lee and his wife Eloise (the father and mother of the present plaintiffs, aged 22 and 19 years at the time of trial), for a recited consideration of $500 executed a quitclaim deed to Mr. Manion to the 160 acres. On November 9, 1938, M. L. Manion, a widower, for a recited consideration of '$1.00 and other valuable consideration' deeded the 160 acres to his daughter and son-in-law Alvin and Sarah B. Smyth. And while R. Kip Briney had been the collector and issued the original tax certificates to the Sophians, Alvin Smyth was the collector in 1938 and executed to the then holder of the tax certificates, Manion, the tax deeds. Thus the title and the parties stood in 1938. In 1956 the Smyths executed a deed of trust, securing a $12,000 note, in favor of the Equitable Life Assurance Society and, subject to the balance due on the indebtedness, in January 1959, for a total price of $28,000 conveyed the 160 acres to the defendant H. L. Lawless. This is the history in brief outline of the opposing titles; on the one hand Charles and Nancy Walters (Stevens) great-grandchildren of the 1913 testator Miller, grandchildren of the 1914 grantee Minnie and children of Lee and Eloise (Nancy's guardian) grantors in the 1937 deed, or, in short, 'the heirs of the body' against, on the other hand, H. L. Lawless and the Equitable Life Assurance Society, purchasers, grantee and mortgagee from and through the successors to the purchaser at the 1936 tax sale. The circumstance or event that gives rise to or makes at all possible the institution of this action is that Lee Walters, Minnie's son and the father of these plaintiffs, died in 1952, aged 43 years, prior to his mother. Minnie died March 16, 1959 and it is thus that the plaintiffs became the 'heirs of the body' within the meaning of the 1913 will and 1914 deed. And, as stated, Nancy is represented here by her mother who was of course Lee's wife and a grantor in the 1938 quitclaim deed to Manion.

In these background circumstances Charles Lee Walters and Nancy Jane Walters Stevens, brother and sister, as 'heirs of the body' instituted this suit against Lawless, his tenant Low, and the mortgagee insurance company, to quiet the title to the 160 acres of land in Stoddard County, claiming of course that they are the fee simple owners. They offer to refund to the defendants all taxes paid by them and their predecessors in title. In a second count they ask for the recovery of a large sum of money by way of rents and profits due a fee simple owner. In an answer and other pleadings not necessary to set out here the defendants assert Mr. Lawless' purchase from the Smyths for $28,000 and claim that he and the mortgagee are bona fide purchasers for value without notice of defects in his title, that he made improvements of $15,000 upon the land and was in law and in fact the fee simple owner of the land free of the plaintiffs' claims.

Having gone thus far in outlining the essential facts perhaps these additional circumstances should be noted before facing up to and meeting the issues involved upon the appeals. In 1936, 1937 and 1938, thirty-five acres of the farm were in woods and the Smyths cleared and put in cultivation about thirty acres of the wooded area. And throughout these years and until the Lawless occupancy there was virtually no drainage and the land often flooded causing the loss of crops. And prior to the purchase by Lawless there were no improvements whatever on the 160 acres of land. Before buying the farm an abstract of title was brought down to date and Mr. Lawless had a Bloomfield lawyer examine the abstract. The lawyer gave Mr. Lawless his written opinion that, subject to the Equitable's deed of trust, the title to the land was 'well vested in Alvin Smyth and Mildred J. Smyth.' After completing his contract of purchase Lawless caused adequate drainage ditches to be constructed, built a house, granary and numerous other improvements, all, he says, before he was aware of or was given notice of the plaintiffs' claims. On May 11, 1959, plaintiffs' counsel wrote Lawless a letter notifying him and for the first time openly asserting the claims of Charles and Nancy. At that time (a point now made much of by counsel for Charles and Nancy) the new chicken house was not finished, Lawless completed its construction after receipt of the letter or notice. Again, with respect to the facts, it should be emphasized that this is but a brief summary of a two-volume record and numerous exhibits all concerning a rather involved if not complicated situation.

In its decree, again summarizing briefly, the court found that on the death of the grandmother, Minnie B. Walters, on March 16, 1959, the fee simple title to the 160 acres of land became vested in Charles and Nancy, the 'heirs of the body.' The court found that in 1936 and 1937, when plaintiffs' father and mother and grandmother executed the quitclaim deed that the value of the land was $4,000, $25 an acre, that 35 acres had not been cleared and that subsequently Lawless 'in good faith and prior to notice of adverse title of Plaintiffs' provided drainage ditches, built a house and made many other improvements totaling in value $20,000. But the court found that since March 16, 1959, the plaintiffs Charles and Nancy were entitled as owners to income and rental value of $9,200 and that Lawless therefore was entitled to a net recovery of $11,601.59 'subject only to general and special taxes thereon, together with any rights, if any, that have vested in the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.' All parties, both plaintiffs and defendants, have appealed from this judgment and decree.

Five separate briefs have been filed and numerous issues, many of them collateral to and dependent upon how the crux of the matter is decided, have been exhaustively presented. But after noting certain distinctions, or, more accurately, after calling attention to certain matters that are not in point of fact involved, the cause turns on a single factor or claim. The trial court expressly found that there was no evidence of fraud or collusion between Manion and his son-in-law Smyth, the county collector. The court found that the consideration for the tax sales was not inadequate--in short, the court specifically found that the tax sales were valid and 'would have divested all the interest of the Plaintiffs herein, had it not been for conveyances appearing of record subsequent to said tax sales.' (Emphasis supplied throughout the opinion.) The appellant 'heirs of the body,' respondents as far as the issue of title is concerned, do not challenge or question this finding. And if this finding of the court is not sufficient to dispose of what is often a litigated point in these cases; it must be carefully noted that this is not an instance in which a life tenant, Mrs. Walters, and her son Lee as a possible 'heir of the body' collaborated and purposefully agreed to permit the taxes to become delinquent and the land to sell at a tax sale for the...