Wilson v. Manduca

• Decision Date: 23 March 1965
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Leota WILSON, formerly Leota Manduca, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Joseph M. MANDUCA et al., Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 405.

Page 435

43 Cal.Rptr. 435

233 Cal.App.2d 184

Leota WILSON, formerly Leota Manduca, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Joseph M. MANDUCA et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 405.

District Court of Appeal, Fifth District, California.

March 23, 1965.

Elledge & Cantwell and Donald B. Cantwell, Modesto, for appellant.

D. Oliver Germino, Los Banos, for respondents.

CONLEY, Presiding Justice.

The plaintiff, Leota Wilson, formerly Leota Manduca, sued her ex-husband, Joseph M. Manduca, and also the Wells Fargo Bank American Trust Co., a banking corporation, Joseph W. Carlucci and the County of Merced, to quiet title to fractional lots, the site of the Paris Inn, in the City of Los Banos. Leota Wilson claimed that she and her former husband were the joint owners of the lots and that the other defendants had claims of lien upon the real property.

Mr. Manduca answered saying that he was the sole owner of the land, free and clear of any interest of his former wife; the bank filed a disclaimer; Joseph W. Carlucci claimed a lien on the real property by reason of a security document executed by Mr. Manduca alone, and the County of Merced asserted a lien for hospital services rendered to Mr. Manduca. The cause was tried without a jury; the trial judge ordered judgment that plaintiff take nothing by reason of her action; that Mr. Manduca was the sole owner of the entire title; that Mr. Carlucci had a legitimate lien on the entire property by virtue of a document executed solely by Mr. Manduca; and that the County of Merced similarly had a lien by reason of hospital services rendered to Mr. Manduca, pursuant to a written contract.

It was established that originally the two Manducas were the joint owners of the land by virtue of a deed from a third party. The central factual question is whether or not a purported deed which bore Leota Manduca's name as grantor and her exhusband's as grantee dated February 6, 1958, and recorded in Merced County on February 11, 1958, was in fact executed by her, or whether it was a forgery.

There was vitally inconsistent evidence at the trial, which, if one side or the other were believed, would justify a finding either way on this essential question, but all of the conflicting evidence could not by any possibility be true. Undoubtedly, perjury was committed by witnesses on one side or the other, and the record would furnish a fertile field for investigation by the District Attorney of Merced County. The trial judge remarked at the close of the case that the question before him was not easy, and that he realized that there would be 'two sides to this question after the Court has reached its decision, just as much as there were two sides before.' However, the judge said that he believed that the burden of proof was upon the plaintiff and as that party had not completely sustained it, he ordered judgment for the defendants. It is conceivable that a retrial might result in an exactly opposite conclusion by the trier of fact, after hearing the former, and perhaps additional, evidence.

A most convincing witness produced by the plaintiff was Sherwood Morrill, who has had many years of experience as a handwriting expert and who, for some 30 years, has been a criminalist with the State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. He testified positively that the purported signature on the questioned deed, and a similar signature on a photostatic copy of the deed by which plaintiff secured a joint interest in the land, were not the handwriting of Leota Wilson, but forgeries. He gave his reasons for this opinion, and the exhibits received in evidence indicate on their face that his evidence is sound. The deed in question was received as plaintiff's exhibit 5, the photostatic copy of the deed to the husband and wife is plaintiff's exhibit 4, and there are plaintiff's exhibits 6 to 12 and defendants' exhibits A and B, which are exemplars of the plaintiff's handwriting.

In collateral support of Mr. Morrill's opinion, there is other evidence which, standing alone, would inevitably lead to the conclusion that the plaintiff did not sign the deed. She denied the execution and acknowledgment and testified that she was not in California at the time the instrument was supposed to have been signed and acknowledged by her but that she was then actually in the State of Arkansas. She also produced two witnesses, Ray Crow and Georgie Johnson, presently residents of California, but who lived at the time in Arkansas, who testified that she was then in that state at that time to their knowledge.

There is, however, contrary evidence which furnishes the background for the trial court's conclusion. Joseph M. Manduca testified that he came to Los Banos, the former residence of the plaintiff and himself, from the State of Arkansas where he had temporarily resided, in the month of January, 1958; that at that time his friend, Mr. Carlucci, who was an officer of the bank which held a trust deed on the Los Banos property, advised him that he could not lend him any additional money unless he could get his wife's name on a new note or should acquire full title to the real property. Mr. Manduca then told Mr. Carlucci that his wife had come to Fresno shortly before and that he would secure a deed from her. He testified that he did not know where his wife was staying, but that she called him on the telephone and that he then arranged to meet her on Olive Avenue in Fresno at a street intersection; that, although he was sick, he drove his car to Fresno alone and met his wife on the street; that they then went to a real estate office, or some similar place of business nearby, and that she signed the deed and acknowledged it before a notary public; that neither of them had ever seen the notary before; that he did not inquire where his wife was staying, but returned alone to Los Banos; that the deed was recorded and that Mr. Carlucci took over the loan from the bank and added to it; that Mr. Manduca also made arrangements with the County of Merced to secure hospital treatment at the County Hospital, upon executing a document creating an additional lien upon the property.

Mr. Carlucci gave some testimony, quoted by respondents, tending to show that he expressed his opinion that plaintiff's true signature was on the questioned deed, but a closer study of the transcript, as indicated in the reply brief of appellant, probably shows that the witness was referring to the verity of her exemplar signatures rather than to the correctness of the writing on the face of the deed itself.

The notary, Mr....