Yates v. Yates, 17752.

• Decision Date: 21 December 1959
• Docket Number: No. 17752.,17752.
• Citation: 272 F.2d 52
• Parties: Mary E. YATES, sometimes known as Betty S. Yates, Appellant, v. Louise Edwards YATES, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

272 F.2d 52 (1959)

Mary E. YATES, sometimes known as Betty S. Yates, Appellant, v. Louise Edwards YATES, Appellee.

No. 17752.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

November 24, 1959.

Rehearing Denied December 21, 1959.

John G. Poole, Jr., T. J. Blackwell, Blackwell, Walker & Gray, Miami, Fla., for appellant.

W. Raleigh Petteway, Miami, Fla., for appellee.

Before HUTCHESON, TUTTLE, and WISDOM, Circuit Judges.

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge.

The controversies which gave rise to these consolidated appeals were over the proceeds of two life insurance policies on the life of Captain Marion T. Yates. In both actions below, the New York Life Insurance Company and the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company were granted Decrees of Interpleader after depositing the proceeds of the respective polices in the registry of the Court. Both Betty Yates, the first wife of Marion, and Louise Yates, his second wife, who were the only claimants to the proceeds of the policies, filed motions for summary judgment. Betty Yates' motions were denied. Louise Yates' motions were granted, final judgments were entered in her behalf on February 11, 1959, and Betty Yates appealed.

Here, on the undisputed facts set out in the margin,¹ the sole question involved is whether Betty, the first wife, or Louise, the second wife, is entitled to the insurance proceeds to the extent of the mortgage indebtedness on Betty Yates' house at the time of Marion Yates' death. The answer to it depends on whether Betty did or did not obtain a vested equitable interest in her husband's life insurance and its proceeds, of which she could not be divested by a later change of beneficiary, as a result of the property settlement and agreement Marion made with her in connection with the divorce. This was that he would, while living, take care of the mortgage indebtedness in accordance with its terms, and that, in the event of his death prior to the time the mortgage indebtedness was paid in full, his life insurance would be used to pay the mortgage balance on Betty Yates' house.

Here, citing many cases,² one of them Sedell v. Sedell, Fla.App., 100 So.2d 639, from Florida, where, on facts less clear and compelling than those here, it has been held that agreements such as the one made here, vested equitable interests in, or charges on, the policies beyond the power of the husband to destroy or modify, appellant insists that the judgment was wrong and must be reversed and here rendered.

Appellee, on her part, attacking the testimony of Betty Yates and of Atkinson, her attorney in the divorce suit, as not admissible under the Florida "Dead Man's" Statute, Sec. 90.05 Florida Statutes Annotated, Vol. 7 at page 60,³ and as an attempt, in violation of the parol evidence rule, to vary, alter, or contradict the separation agreement, urges upon us that the agreement does not charge a trust upon, or otherwise vest in Betty an equitable interest in, the policies or their proceeds which put it beyond the power of Marion to change the beneficiary in the policies. Citing in support of this position and relying strongly on Cadore v. Cadore, Fla., 67 So.2d 635, appellee insists that the district judge was right and the judgment must be affirmed.

We do not think so. On the contrary, we are of the clear opinion: that, taken in connection with the circumstances attending its confection and execution, the separation agreement is completely adequate to charge the policies with an equitable interest in favor of appellant; and that the objections to the testimony on the grounds put forward are without merit, both because the invoked statute is not applicable here⁴ and because the oral evidence is not contradictory of, but in complete accord with, the separation agreement.

As to Cadore v. Cadore, on which appellee so strongly relies, we find nothing in it which, when its particular facts are considered, conflicts with the holdings in the cases appellant cites. Indeed, the decision in that case is predicated on a finding that "Cadore complied with the terms of the stipulation and the final decree". Here it is admitted that Yates did not comply with the settlement agreement. There is no question made here, as there was there, of the right of Yates to change the beneficiary in the policy. The claim asserted by appellant here is: that Louise Yates, as beneficiary, took her interest in the policies subject to the equitable interest in, or charges upon, them in favor of appellant; and that, upon the husband's death, with the loan still unpaid, the policies and their proceeds are, to the extent necessary to discharge the debt on the home, charged with the equitable interest with which Marion as their owner had, by his solemn agreement, charged them.

The judgment was wrong. It is reversed and here rendered for the Appellant.

1 Betty Yates and Doctor Marion T. Yates were married on April 13, 1934, and four children were born as the issue of the marriage, John M. Yates, James T. Yates, Stephen Lee Yates, and Samuel S. Yates, at the time of the suit aged twenty-two, twenty, nineteen and seventeen, respectively.

On June 5, 1947, New York Life Ins. Co. issued to Marion Yates its policy in the amount of $5500.00. On May 1, 1955, John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. issued to Marion Yates a policy of life insurance in the amount of $20,000.00. Betty Yates was named beneficiary in both policies and had both policies in her possession at the time she and Marion Yates entered into a separation agreement prior to divorce.

In the early part of 1956, Betty and Marion Yates separated and thereafter ceased to live together, and Marion, who was then an officer in the Medical Corps, U.S.N., caused his transfer to Miami, Florida. Thereafter he retained an attorney, Joseph Hirschman, in...