Daniel v. Daniel

181 P. 215, 106 Wash. 659, 1919 Wash. LEXIS 999
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedMay 12, 1919
DocketNo. 14951
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 181 P. 215 (Daniel v. Daniel) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Daniel v. Daniel, 181 P. 215, 106 Wash. 659, 1919 Wash. LEXIS 999 (Wash. 1919).

Opinion

Fullerton, J.

This action was instituted by Hazel Daniel as plaintiff against the defendants, John I. Daniel and Ella Mona Daniel, his wife, to have established and set aside to her an interest in certain described real property, situated in part in the state of Washington and in part in the state of Arizona. The plaintiff claims as heir of her deceased mother, formerly the wife of the defendant John I. Daniel, who is her father. The other defendant is the present wife of John I. Daniel. In the complaint it is alleged that certain of the property in the state of Washington, •namely, lot 2, of block 10, Resurvey and Addition to the city of Spokane, was the property of the community consisting of the defendant John I. Daniel and the plaintiff’s mother, owned and held by them at the [662]*662time of the mother’s death; and that the other property in this state was acquired by the defendant subsequent to the mother’s death from the rents, issues, and profits of the community property. The property in Arizona was in part entered as a homestead under the laws of the United States during the lifetime of the mother, and commuted subsequent to the mother’s death. The remainder of the property in that state was subsequently purchased by the defendant John I. Daniel with the proceeds, it is alleged, of the community property mentioned.

The answer of the defendants put in issue the allegations of the complaint concerning the manner and time of the acquisition of the property, and affirmatively averred that the property was acquired subsequent to the death of the plaintiff’s mother, and that it was the separate property of the defendant John I. Daniel. In the answer, the statute of limitations was also pleaded. To the answer, a reply was filed, putting in issue its affirmative allegations.

With the issues thus framed, and before a trial was entered upon, the plaintiff and defendants purported to settle the differences between them. The written evidences of the purported settlement consisted of some five separate instruments: (1) A writing signed by the plaintiff,' entitled after the manner of the pleadings, in which, after reciting that since the commencement of her action, she had become convinced that it was without merit and that she had been misled in starting the same, she consented to its dismissal; further agreeing that the dismissal should “be res adjudicata” of any further cause of action, and that she would not thereafter directly or indirectly prosecute any further suit for the recovery of the property, and that the writing should be sufficient authority for the [663]*663court to make an order dismissing the action; (2) a quitclaim deed, signed and acknowledged by the plaintiff, purporting to convey to- the defendant her interest in all of the property described in the complaint situated in the state of Washington; (3) a quitclaim deed, signed and acknowledged by the plaintiff, purporting to convey to the defendant all her interests in the property described in the complaint situated in the state of Arizona; (4) a writing on a printed blank form for a quitclaim deed, signed by the defendants, but otherwise defectively executed, purporting to convey to the plaintiff forty acres of the homestead property, situated in the state of Arizona; and (5) an agreement signed by the defendant John I. Daniel in which he agreed to pay the plaintiff’s schooling, board, laundry, room rent, buy her clothing, give her ten dollars per month spending money, for a term of “one year but not more than two,” while she was in attendance upon some school not named. The writing authorizing the dismissal of the action was filed in the cause on November 16, 1916, some three months after the filing of the reply.

The action was not dismissed on the agreement, and later on the respondent obtained leave of court and filed a supplemental complaint. In this complaint, she charged the defendants with fraud in procuring the writing authorizing a dismissal, setting forth in detail the facts upon which the charge was founded . and asking that the agreement to dismiss and the quit- ' claim deeds executed by her be set aside and held for naught. To this complaint, the defendants demurred, and on their demurrer being overruled, answered, putting in issue its allegations.

The cause was then tried upon the issues made by the supplemental complaint and the denials thereto, [664]*664at the conclusion of which the trial court announced that the allegations of the complaint had been sustained and that he would, in the final judgment, should the allegations of the principal complaint be sustained, set aside and hold for naught the agreement to dismiss and the quitclaim deeds issued contemporaneously therewith. To these conclusions, the defendants excepted, and moved that the court’s findings be reduced to writing and that a judgment be then entered embodying the court’s holding, that an appeal therefrom might be taken and perfected. This motion the court denied; whereupon the trial proceeded upon the issues made by the original complaint, the answer thereto, and the reply to the answer. At the conclusion of the trial, the court entered a decree setting aside the written agreement for a dismissal of the' action, the quitclaim deed from the plaintiff to the defendant John I. Daniel for the property in the state of Washington, decreeing the plaintiff to be the owner of an undivided one-twelfth interest in the lot herein-before specifically described, and directing that an accounting be taken for a one-twelfth interest in the rents and profits of the property received by the defendant John I. Daniel since the death of the plaintiff’s mother. It was further decreed that the plaintiff had no interest in the other property described in the complaint situated in the state of Washington. While the decree made no specific reference to the Arizona lands, the court early in the trial held that it was without jurisdiction over them and admitted evidence only as tending to elucidate the respective contentions of the parties. Both parties appeal. •

Taking up the appeal of the defendants, the first question to be noticed arises on the ruling of the court permitting the appellant to file the supplemental com[665]*665plaint. It is claimed that this was error because the matter set forth therein was not in aid of the cause of action pleaded in the original complaint; that is, it did not bring before the court new matter pertaining to the cause of action originally set forth arising subsequent thereto, but was a matter independent of the original cause of action, tending to defeat it, and hence must be itself the subject of an original cause of action. But, conceding the effect of the matter set forth in the complaint to be as the defendants contend, we think, nevertheless, there was no error in permitting it to be filed in and tried out as a part of the original action. If a controversy had arisen between the parties over the ownership of the land, and a purported settlement had been agreed upon between them before action was begun thereon in which the defendants had overreached and defrauded the plaintiff, manifestly the plaintiff could, in a single suit in equity, set aside the purported settlement and establish her interest in the property. She would not have been compelled to institute two suits for that purpose. Equity, having jurisdiction over the controversy, could in one proceeding afford complete relief. The fact that the purported settlement was had in the instant case after suit begun does not change the situation in this respect.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
181 P. 215, 106 Wash. 659, 1919 Wash. LEXIS 999, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/daniel-v-daniel-wash-1919.