Connelly v. Gaffaney

1932 OK 599, 14 P.2d 391, 159 Okla. 60, 1932 Okla. LEXIS 556
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 13, 1932
Docket19783
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 1932 OK 599 (Connelly v. Gaffaney) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Connelly v. Gaffaney, 1932 OK 599, 14 P.2d 391, 159 Okla. 60, 1932 Okla. LEXIS 556 (Okla. 1932).

Opinions

HEFNER, J.

Alexander Connelley, as plaintiff, brought this suit against Grace Gaffaney, Charles T. Connelly, Theresa Connelly, and ¡Edgar Connelly’ four of his children by a second marriage, and others, as defendants, to cancel certain deeds of conveyance and to quiet the title to the lands therein conveyed in himself.

The evidence discloses that he was a Sac and Pox Indian, about 80 years of age. He had been selected as a member of the business committee of the tribe and had served quite a long time as such; he was one of the three men who had charge of the business affairs of that tribe. He had received an allotment of 160 acres of land as his portion of the lands of the tribe. He married and had a daughter by that marriage, which, daughter had received an allotment. His first wife died and he married again and there were four children by the second marriage, none of whom received an allotment for the reason that the land had all been allotted prior to their birth. After the death of the second wife, he sold her allotment, paid all the exp'enses of her illness, and purchased 70 acres of land with the balance of the money. He had mortgaged all of his land for $900. He owned a small house in the village of the Sac and Fox Agency, in which he and his four children by the second wife lived. Two of the children were girls and two were boys. The boys worked away from home and at times worked on the land, and the girls stayed at home and took care of it and their father. The daughter by the first wife lived in Drumright.

The plaintiff’s third marriage was to a young white woman 23 years of age, and the record discloses that she had been guilty of selling whisky. On marriage to her, plaintiff left his home and the home of his children and went to live with his third wife in the house she had rented about a quarter of a mile north of the home of the children. The children objected to his marriage, and shortly thereafter two of them asked him to get in a car with them and they took him to Cushing, where the two boys were working. When they arrived there they told him that his wife was going to divorce him and cause him trouble over his land, and that if he would deed the land to them they would hold it and preserve it and keep her from getting any of it. He considered the land valuable and wanted them to have it after he was through with it. He did not want the daughter in Drumright to have any of it for the reason that she had an allotment of her own. His third wife had overdrawn his account at the bank and had run him in debt to merchants. At the request of the four children, he executed the deed in favor of them as grantees; and for a consideration of $50 and services rendered, he deeded to O. T. Hubbell an undivided one-fourth interest in the royalty under the 70-acre tract of land. Hubbell deeded it to Jonathan A. Smith, and he, in turn, deeded it to Floyd G. Hubbell. Plaintiff then went from Cushing back to where his wife lived. Soon thereafter she sued him for divorce. He told her and her lawyer that he had deeded the property to the four children before he married her. Has wife was granted a divorce and given $500 in settlement of her claim for alimony. Soon thereafter the four children leased a portion of the land for oil. From the proceeds they paid off the mortgage against the land, paid up the taxes, made improvements on the land, repaired the fences, and paid for living expenses for themselves and their father, who. lived with them from the time of separation from his last wife.

Prior to the execution of the deed, plaintiff made a will giving all of his property to the four children and excluded the daughter at Drumright for the reason that she had an allotment of land. After execution of the lease, an oil well was commenced on an adjacent tract of land and soon thereafter the Drumright daughter went to see plaintiff to find out why she had been left out of his will. She took him to Drumright, and, after she and a lawyer had talked to him, he made a new will and gave the property to all of the children and authorized the lawyer to bring this suit. He then went home, where he continued to live with the four children.

On trial of the case to the court, it sustained a demurrer to the evidence of plain *62 tiff and entered judgment against Mm. This action of the trial court is brought here for review.

Under the record disclosed herein, it becomes necessary to determine what weight and credit shall be given the judgment of the trial court in an equity case of this character. In the ease of Penny v. Vose, 108 Okla. 103, 234 P. 601, this court said;

“Where this practice is followed in an equity case, however, the court should treat the demurrer to the testimony as a motion for judgment in favor of defendant upon the testimony as produced by the plaintiff. Such a motion and such a consideration of a demurrer to the testimony would naturally and properly require a weighing of all the testimony introduced by the plaintiff by the judge trying the case. Any other rule would result in an absurdity. When the plaintiff has introduced all his testimony and rested, if upon consideration of all such testimony, the court, trying the case without a jury, is of the opinion that the defendant should prevail, it would be an idle thing to require the defendant to put on testimony to bolster up a case he had already won. When the plaintiff 1ms exhausted his testimony and so announces by closing his case, it is not error for the court to weigh plaintiff’s evidence and pronounce judgment for defendant where the testimony warrants. ”

Not only is the above rule a correct one, •in our judgment, the record in this case affirmatively discloses that the trial court, after it weighed all of the evidence, entered its judgment thereon. Among other things, it said:

“I think the plaintiff knew exactly what he was doing when he did it, and for a purpose, and the purpose has been carried out, and I doubt very seriously if he could, in equity, cancel this conveyance any way; not with the reasons he gives for transferring the property.”

The court, in its journal entry, in part, said:

“Now, on this 3rd day of April, 3928, the above-entitled action comes on regularly for trial, plaintiff being present in person and by his attorneys of record, Streeter Speakman and H. M. Jarrett, and the defendants appearing in person and by their attorneys, Andrews & Andrews. Thereupon both parties having announced ready for trial, witnesses having been sworn, plaintiff introduces Ms evidence and rests; thereupon the defendants and each of them severally interpose their demurrer to the evidence offered by the plaintiff herein and thereupon the court sustains said demurrers, to wMch the plaintiff duly excepts, and thereupon the court finds that the plaintiff’s petition should be dismissed and that judgment should be rendered against the plaintiff herein for costs, to all of which the plaintiff excepts.
“It is, therefore, considered, ordered, and adjudged that the demurrers interposed by the defendants to the evidence of the plaintiff offered herein be and are each hereby ■sustained, and that the plaintiff’s petition is hereby dismissed and judgment is hereby rendered in favor of the defendants and against the plaintiff for the costs of rhis action, to all of which the plaintiff duly excepts.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1932 OK 599, 14 P.2d 391, 159 Okla. 60, 1932 Okla. LEXIS 556, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/connelly-v-gaffaney-okla-1932.