Dart v. McDonald

195 P. 253, 114 Wash. 448, 1921 Wash. LEXIS 637
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 3, 1921
DocketNos. 16146, 16144, 16145
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 195 P. 253 (Dart v. McDonald) 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
Dart v. McDonald, 195 P. 253, 114 Wash. 448, 1921 Wash. LEXIS 637 (Wash. 1921).

Opinion

Mount, J.

— These three cases are closely related. They were tried separately in the court below, but, by stipulation of the parties, are consolidated for argument here and are presented in one set of briefs. They all arise out of facts which may be briefly summarized as follows:

On June 24, 1918, L. S. Dart and others obtained a judgment against D. K. McDonald, Maude S. McDonald, his wife, and others. Mrs. McDonald appeared separately in that case and appealed from a judgment therein rendered against her. The judgment against her- in her individual capacity was reversed. See Dart v. McDonald, 107 Wash. 537, 182 Pac. 628. Pending the appeal in that case, an execution was issued and levied upon two pieces of property which then stood in the name of Mrs. McDonald. One is known in the record as an orchard tract in Opportunity, in Spokane county, and the other is an apartment house known as Princeton apartments, in the city of Spokane. These properties were sold by the sheriff under the execution and bid in by Mr. Dart. Sheriff’s deeds were issued and confirmed and Dart went into possession of the property.

After the judgment had been reversed upon appeal, Mrs. McDonald brought two actions; one, an action against the Darts to quiet title in her because of the sheriff’s deed standing of record. This action resulted in.a judgment quieting title in Mrs. McDonald. [450]*450The Darts have appealed from this judgment. About the same time, Mrs. McDonald sued out a writ of restitution which came on to be heard and resulted in a judgment placing her in possession of the property and an accounting for rents, issues and profits in favor of Mrs. McDonald for $1,709.61. Mrs. McDonald has appealed from the order determining the rents, issues and profits, claiming that the court erred in not allowing her $294.02 paid by the Darts to an agent as commission for renting the apartments.

After judgments in all these cases, the Darts, by a proceeding in the lower court, attempted to offset the costs, amounting to some six' hundred dollars in their favor in the original action, against a judgment for a like amount in favor of Mrs. McDonald upon her appeal in that action. The trial court denied the right to offset. The Darts have appealed from that order.

We shall consider these cases in the order in which they are above stated. The facts relating to the action to quiet title are substantially as follows: In the year 1911, Mr. and Mrs. McDonald, who were then husband and wife and had been such for a number of years, owned, jointly with one A. B. Clark and wife, a tract of land in Grant county comprising sixteen hundred and twenty acres. A mortgage upon this land had been executed by the owners for thirty-five thousand dollars in favor of the DeTweed Northwestern & Pacific Hypotheek Bank. In the same year (1911), Mr. and Mrs. McDonald and Mr. Clark agreed upon a partition of that tract of land. Three hundred and twenty acres of the tract was deeded to Mrs. McDonald as her separate property. She assumed and agreed to pay ten thousand dollars of the mortgage then existing upon the whole tract. D. K. McDonald in his separate right was given eight hun[451]*451dred aeres and he assumed and agreed to pay fifteen thousand dollars of the mortgage then upon the whole tract. A. B. Clark and wife were given five hundred acres and assumed and agreed to pay ten thousand dollars of the mortgage then upon the whole tract. Immediately after this division of the property among the parties, Mrs. McDonald took actual possession of the three hundred and twenty acres deeded to her as her separate property and operated it thereafter as her own separate property without the intervention of her husband. Mr. McDonald at that time, according to the undisputed testimony, was worth, over and above his unsecured debts, two hundred thousand dollars or more. This transaction took place two years or more before the transaction arose upon which the judgment of Dart et al. against McDonald et al., reported in Dart v. McDonald, supra, was instituted, and apparently before McDonald had thought of the business which gave rise to that action.

In the year 1916, Mrs. McDonald borrowed from the Vermont Loan & Trust Company ten thousand five hundred dollars and secured the same by a mortgage upon her separate property. Mr. McDonald at the same time borrowed twenty thousand dollars from the Vermont Loan & Trust Company and secured the same by a mortgage upon the eight hundred acres of his property. Twenty-five thousand dollars of this money was used to satisfy the mortgage held by the DeTweed Northwestern & Pacific Hypotheek Bank. The mortgage of that company was then released upon the property of Mrs. McDonald and D. K. McDonald. Afterwards, Mrs. McDonald exchanged her three hundred and twenty acres of land subject to the mortgage of ten thousand five hundred dollars to one L. Williams for the apartment house in Spokane. Mr. Williams accepted the three hundred and twenty [452]*452acres of land subject to the ten thousand five hundred dollar mortgage. Mrs. McDonald took the apartment house subject to a mortgage of fifteen thousand dollars, which she assumed and agreed to pay. After Mrs. McDonald had taken possession of the apartment house which she had obtained for her farm land, Mr. McDonald executed a quitclaim deed reciting that the property was the separate property of Mrs. McDonald. Mrs. McDonald, from the time she received the farm land in 1911, up until she was dispossessed of the apartment house under the sheriff’s sale, had operated both the farm while she owned it and the apartment house as her separate and individual property.

We have carefully read the whole of the evidence upon the trial and it conclusively shows that this property is the separate property of Mrs. McDonald. In fact, there was no evidence offered to the contrary. The appellants here seek to charge the property as community property, claiming that the original judgment in Dart v. McDonald, 107 Wash. 537, 182 Pac. 628, is a community judgment and that this property is liable for the payment of that judgment. Their contention is based, if we understand their argument correctly, upon the theory that, when this tract of sixteen hundred and twenty acres in Grant county was purchased, it was purchased as community'property, and the mortgage of thirty-five thousand dollars upon the property was a community obligation and that it continued a community obligation until it was finally paid. As between the mortgagors and the mortgagees, this no doubt was a community obligation and continued as such until it was paid; but, as between Mr. and Mrs. McDonald and all the world beside who were not creditors at that time, where no fraud was shown in the transaction (as none was shown here), the three hun[453]*453dred and twenty acres deeded to her by her husband was separate property. It stood of record in her name as separate property. She used it and operated it as separate property in all her dealings with it. When she assumed the debt of ten thousand dollars, she assumed it in her separate right and all her separate property thereby became liable for that debt. That ten thousand dollars was afterward paid by. Mr. Williams, who purchased the property from Mrs. McDonald. The property she acquired in its stead became her separate property beyond any question.

It seems to be argued by appellant that the proceeds of the ten thousand five hundred dollar mortgage which Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
195 P. 253, 114 Wash. 448, 1921 Wash. LEXIS 637, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dart-v-mcdonald-wash-1921.