Cahill v. Chesley

189 So. 2d 818, 1966 Fla. App. LEXIS 4809
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedAugust 26, 1966
DocketNo. 5187
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 189 So. 2d 818 (Cahill v. Chesley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cahill v. Chesley, 189 So. 2d 818, 1966 Fla. App. LEXIS 4809 (Fla. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

WARREN, LAMAR, Associate Judge.

In this action the plaintiff asked that the title to certain property be quieted in him and that certain deeds be cancelled.

The subject property was the homestead of W. J. Sanborn, who passed away in 1941, and who was survived by his widow and his daughter by a former marriage, Marguerite Chesley, wife of John H. Chesley.

The plaintiff, Charles A. Cahill, acquired his claim of title by virtue of a deed executed by Mrs. Sanborn on January 12, 1957, which was recorded on December 30, 1959. The defendants, Harrison W. Ches-ley, son of Marguerite Chesley, and Phyllis J. Chesley, his wife, acquired their claim through inheritance, that is, when Sanborn died, Mrs. Sanborn became possessed of a life interest, and the daughter of a remainder interest; upon the death of each successively, the title vested in Mrs. Ches-ley’s husband, John Chesley, and after his death, title passed to his son, Harrison W. Chesley, who pursuant to divorce proceedings, conveyed to the defendant, Phyllis J. Chesley.

For the purposes of this appeal it is necessary to state that in 1937, the Sanborns mailed a deed of said property, dated September 10, 1937, to Harrison W. Chesley, however, no consideration was given for the deed. And in 1941, after Sanborn’s death, his widow sought and obtained a deed, dated September 3, 1941, from Ches-ley and his wife, the defendants, conveying the property back to her; there was no consideration for this deed. Both of these instruments were recorded on March 3, 1943. On March 2, 1943, the widow conveyed the property to Marguerite and John Ches-ley, reserving a life interest in herself, the deed being recorded November 7, 1957.

It will be noted that the deed to the Ches-leys was executed prior to that under which the plaintiff claimed, but that the deed to the plaintiff was executed prior to the recordation of that given to the Chesleys.

[820]*820In its final decree, the lower court found that the property “was the homestead of W. J. Sanborn on September 10, 1937, and at the time of his death on July 18, 1941; that Mary Agnes Sanborn, the widow of W. J. Sanborn, was never possessed of more than a life estate in said property and that upon the death of • W. J. Sanborn, his daughter, Marguerite Chesley, became possessed of a vested remainder interest therein, subject only to the life estate of Mary Agnes Sanborn; that the conveyance of the said property on September 10, 1937 to Harrison Webster Chesley, without consideration and to the exclusion of the daughter, Marguerite Chesley, was invalid because the same was not in accordance with the provisions of the constitution of the State of Florida; that as a consequence thereof, the reconveyance of the property, without consideration, by Harrison Webster Chesley to Mary Agnes Sanborn, after the death of W. J. Sanborn was ineffectual and passed no title therein; that subsequent conveyances of the property by Mary Agnes San-born could not convey more than her life estate therein; that after the death of Mary Agnes Sanborn in September, 1957, the defendant, Harrison Webster Chesley became vested with the fee simple title to said property by inheritance through his mother, Marguerite Chesley, who died in July, 1957, and the subsequent death of his father, John W. Chesley.

“That, even if the principle of after-acquired title in Harrison Webster Chesley were to be applied, the Plaintiff did not pay a valuable consideration to Mary Agnes Sanborn for said property and, therefore, was not protected under Section 695.01 of the 1963 Florida Statutes [F.S.A.], and the deed from Mary Agnes Sanborn to Marguerite Chesley and John H. Chesley, her husband, dated March 2, 1943, and recorded November 7, 1957, would be valid and have priority over the conveyance of said property by Mary Agnes Sanborn to the Plaintiff on January 12, 1957, and recorded December 30, 1959.” Finding the equities with the defendants, the cause was dismissed.

Plaintiff’s first point on appeal is stated as whether or not the defendants are barred by F.S. § 95.16 or § 95.23, F.S.A., from now asserting their claim against the property. It is the plaintiffs position that his grantor, Mrs. Sanborn, was in possession of the property under color of title in excess of seven years after the deed to her by Chesley and his wife in 1941, and further, that it had been more than twenty years from the recordation in 1943 of the Ches-ley deed. As to § 95.23, he relies on Barnott v. Proctor, 128 Fla. 63, 174 So. 404, and Reed v. Fain, Fla., 145 So.2d 858. In the former, the children of Barnott brought an action against their mother and one Proctor, who was the purchaser at a master’s sale of a portion of homestead property. It appeared that Barnott and his wife executed a voluntary conveyance of the homestead to a third person, who without valuable consideration conveyed the same land to Mrs. Barnott. The court held that, “The statute operates to prevent the plaintiffs from claiming against the purported conveyance to the wife, the mother of the plaintiffs, after the lapse of the statutory period, the plaintiffs being sui juris and having had for many years constructive and actual knowledge of the deeds * Subsequently, the ruling in the Barnott case was cited as authority to dismiss a second amended complaint and, upon appeal, the dismissal was affirmed in Thompson v. Thompson, Fla., 70 So.2d 555.

In the Reed case, Reed (in whom the title was originally), joined by his wife, in 1930 conveyed his homestead to their son, who immediately reconveyed the property to his father and mother in order to create an estate by the entirety. Both conveyances were without consideration. In 1951, the parents again conveyed the property to their son, reserving to themselves a life estate with survivorship — however, it was later determined that Reed lacked the mental capacity to execute this document. [821]*821The father died in 19S4, and in 1955 the mother conveyed her “life estate” to her son. She died within a year. In 1957, the daughter of the Reeds, Vivian Reed Fain, filed suit to obtain cancellation of the deeds above mentioned. The defendants in their answer relied upon § 95.23, in view of the fact that the 1930 conveyance by the son to the parents had been of record without adverse claim for more than twenty years. The chancellor held that when the father died in 1954, he held the title as a homestead, and that it inured to his widow as a life estate and then to his two children as tenants in common, reaching this conclusion by holding that the 1930 transaction between the parents and their son was an ineffective attempt to alienate the homestead. Upon the decision being affirmed by the district court, the supreme court was requested to review the decision of the district court because of an alleged conflict with Barnott and Thompson, supra.

After a lengthy decision, the court on page 871 of 145 So.2d stated: “Summarizing, we hold that F.S. Section 9523, F.S.A., is not applicable in this case because, first, the critical deed is void, second, if not void ab initio, it was and is void as to Mrs. Fain’s ‘inchoate’ interest in the homestead which became ‘vested’ upon the death of her father; third, the Legislature did not intend F.S. Section 95.23, F.S.A., to be applicable to deeds or wills conveying or devising ‘homestead property’; fourth, F.S. Section 95.23, F.S.A., is unconstitutional if it be construed in such manner as to breathe life into an instrument made and executed in contravention of constiUitional inhibitions. We expressly recede from our decision in Thompson v. Thompson, Fla., 1954, 70 So.2d 555.

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Bluebook (online)
189 So. 2d 818, 1966 Fla. App. LEXIS 4809, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cahill-v-chesley-fladistctapp-1966.