Burns v. Bangert

92 Mo. 167
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedApril 15, 1887
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 92 Mo. 167 (Burns v. Bangert) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Burns v. Bangert, 92 Mo. 167 (Mo. 1887).

Opinion

Rat, J.

This cause has twice been in the St. Louis court of appeals, and is reported in Bangert v. Bangert, 13 Mo. App. 144, and Burns v. Bangert, 16 Mo. App. 22.

In 1872, one Tieman was the owner of a valuable and productive farm, designated, in the evidence, as the Columbia bottom farm, upon which he resided at the [171]*171date of Ms death in said year. Tie left as his widow, Wilhelmine Charlotte Tieman, usually spoken of as Charlotte, and four minor children. The widow con-, tinued, with the said children; to reside upon the said farm after his death, and held the same under the provision of Tieman’s will, which will be noticed hereafter.

In the first year after the death of Tieman, the widow saved, from the products of the farm, the sum of one thousand dollars. Some gathered crops which the husband left on said farm and which she sold, entered into this sum. Whilst residing on this farm, in the year 1873, and one year and some months after the death of Tieman, her first husband, said Charlotte Tie-man intermarried with the defendant, Henry Bangert, who, immediately after the marriage, became administrator, de bonis non, of her first husband’s estate, andas such received into his hands about twenty-five hundred dollars. He also became curator for each of said four minor children. He was possessed of no means at the date of the marriage. For three years thereafter he lived with his said wife upon the Columbia bottom farm, and they, with the minor children, cultivated it together, the wife and children laboring in the fields as well as said husband, and doing the cooking and the household work of all descriptions. Said Henry Bangert had no other occupation, or business, or means of making money, except such as were afforded by the said farm, so held by the wife. Upon this he bestowed his time and labor, as we have said.

In 1876 said Henry Bangert bought a farm, near the Columbia farm, held by his wife under Tieman’s will, paying therefor fifty-six hundred and fifty dollars, in cash, and took a deed of general warranty therefor in his own name. The grantor in said deed to Henry Bangert was one Frenz, and this farm is spoken of as the Frenz farm. In April, 1879, Bangert conveyed the Frenz farm to William Benne, who, in May, 1879, [172]*172conveyed it in trust to Henry Benne for the separate use of said Charlotte, wife of, said Henry Bangert. These intermediate deeds were without consideration.

In May, 1879, John Bangert, the uncle' of defendant Henry, held the latter’s note for one thousand dollars, upon which he instituted suit, and obtained judgment, by default, thereon in June, 1879. This note was the sole obligation and debt of the husband, and was given prior to his said marriage with the widow of Tieman. John Bangert levied execution, under his said judgment, on the said Prenz farm, and at the sheriff’s sale became the purchaser thereof for one dollar. He thereupon instituted this suit against Henry Bangert, wife, el al., the first count of the petition being in the nature of a bill in equity, to set aside, as fraudulent, said conveyances made by the husband through a third party to a trustee, to hold for the separate use of the wife. The second count was one in ejectment for the possession of said farm.

Said John Bangert and wife, after the institution of this suit, conveyed the Prenz farm, by deed of quitclaim, to said plaintiffs, Burns & Metcalfe, for six hundred dollars, and said John Bangert also assigned to them the judgment obtained by him against said Henry Bangert, and after the death of said John Bangert, said Burns and Metcalfe were substituted on the record, and the suit revived in their name.

The answer of the defendants, so far as we care to consider the same, alleges, in substance, that said Henry Bangert, acting as the agent of said Charlotte Bangert, the wife, and as curator of said minor children, purchased the said Prenz farm, and that, of the purchase money paid therefor, sixteen hundred dollars belonged to the minor children jointly, and the remaining four thousand dollars belonged to defendant, Charlotte Bangert, being the rents, issues, and products of the real estate devised to her by her first husband.

[173]*173The only evidence adduced at the trial as to the acquisition of this purchase money, what it was, and whence derived, was given by the defendant, Charlotte' Bangejt, who was put upon the stand by the plaintiffs.. Her testimony is given in the opinion in 16 Mo. App. 33, 34, 35, and we need not again recite it. In this-said opinion the court of appeals say: “ If we give full effect to this testimony (meaning that of the wife), it will appear that, of the fifty-six hundred and fifty dollars, which appears to have been the purchase price of theFrenz farm, twenty-six hundred and fifty dollars were given by Mrs. Bangert to Henry Bangert, out of moneys which she had kept in the house, the same being accumulations of sales of produce of the Columbia bottom farm, on which her former husband died, and on which she has ever since lived, both before- and after her marriage with her present husband, Henry Bangert. It will also appear that, of this twenty-six hundred and fifty dollars, one thousand dollars was the result of accumulations by Mrs Bangert from sales of produce of the farm, during her widowhood, and that the remaining sixteen hundred and fifty dollars was money which had accumulated from sales of produce of the same farm during the period of about three years which intervened between her marriage with Henry Bangert and the purchase of the Frenz farm. Whether it can be inferred, from this testimony, that any money of Henry Bangert went into the purchase of the Frenz farm, depends upon the question, who was the legal owner of this sixteen hundred and fifty dollars ? There is no evidence of anyseparate ownership of this money by Mrs. Bangert, other than the fact that she always had it in her personal custody at the house, and that it was the proceeds-of a farm in which an estate for twenty years had been vested in her by her former husband.”

After some discussion of several opinions of this-court (Woodford v. Stephens, 51 Mo. 443, 447; Kidwell v. [174]*174Kirkpatrick, 70 Mo. 214; and Walker v. Walker, 25 Mo. 367, 375), the court of appeals then say: “Applying these principles to the facts of this case, the conclusion is unavoidable that all of that portion of the money which was used by Henry Bangert in the purchase of this farm, amounting to the sum of four thousand dollars, which the defendants claim in their answer was the money of Mrs. Bangert, is to be deemed to have been the money of the defendant Bangert. When he married the widow Tieman, and went to live with her on the Columbia bottom farm, he is deemed, in law, to have entered into possession of her estate for years in the farm under the deceased husband5 s will, which was a chattel interest, and also of all chattels upon the farm belonging to her. There is no evidence whatever of any ■agreement, at that time, or of any purpose on his part to hold, these chattel interests as her trustee, or in any other than his own right as her husband, under the law as it then stood. The one thousand dollars which she claims to have owned, became his, “jure mariti,” under the decision above quoted from the twenty-fifth Missouri. Although it may not have been taken into physical custody, though Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
92 Mo. 167, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burns-v-bangert-mo-1887.