Dent County Bank v. Reary

674 S.W.2d 650, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 3973
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 24, 1984
DocketNo. 13281
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 674 S.W.2d 650 (Dent County Bank v. Reary) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dent County Bank v. Reary, 674 S.W.2d 650, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 3973 (Mo. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

CROW, Presiding Judge.

Dent County Bank (“appellant”) appeals from a judgment denying its prayer for reformation of a warranty deed and a deed of trust, insisting there was no substantial evidence to support the trial court’s decision. That contention — appellant’s sole point — necessitates a summary of the evidence.

Dean Jones (“Dean”) and his wife, Mary, own several hundred acres of land in Dent County. They are parents of five children including a daughter, Nancy, who, at the times pertinent here, was the wife of Emmett Reary (“Emmett”).

Prior to the events in issue, Dean, motivated by love and affection for his children, told them he would give each one some acreage on which to build a home. Nancy recalled Dean saying he would give each child 10 acres.

In early 1979, Nancy informed her parents that she and Emmett wanted some land for a home. Nancy and Emmett both testified that Dean and Mary agreed to give them 10 acres. Emmett, like Dean, was aware that a square tract, each side measuring 660 feet, contains 10 acres.

Nancy and Emmett selected a building site in the southwest part of a tract owned by Dean and Mary. Nancy marked the location by tying orange yarn around three trees, 5 or 6 feet above the ground.

Thereafter, Dean, Mary, Nancy and Emmett went to the site, and Dean undertook to measure 10 acres, beginning at the southwest corner of his property. Dean’s testimony, footnoted below,1 describes what occurred.

[652]*652Nancy’s testimony, also footnoted,2 parallels Dean’s.

As shown by that testimony, Dean, after walking east from his southwest corner a distance that he believed to be 660 feet, then stepping off an additional 100 feet east of that, decided to give Nancy and Emmett a rectangular tract measuring 760 feet east-west by 660 feet north-south.

Dean requested an attorney to prepare a warranty deed describing a tract beginning at the southwest corner of Dean’s and Mary’s property, thence east 760 feet along the south property line, thence north 660 feet, thence west 760 feet to the west property line, thence south along the west line 660 feet to the point of beginning. The deed was prepared accordingly, naming Dean and Mary as grantors, and Emmett and Nancy as grantees. Dean and Mary signed it April 26, 1979, and it was recorded the same day.

Emmett, who had previously done business with appellant, arranged to borrow funds from appellant to pay for the home he and Nancy intended to build. Emmett took the warranty deed to appellant, showing it to Douglas Wisdom, appellant’s executive vice president.

On June 30, 1979, appellant loaned Emmett and Nancy $35,000. Emmett and Nancy signed a promissory note in that amount, secured by a deed of trust on the land deeded them by Dean and Mary. The description of the land in the deed of trust was copied from the warranty deed. The $35,000, together with an additional $12,-000 borrowed later, was used by Emmett and Nancy to build the home. It was constructed on the site they had selected, or west thereof.

Nancy and Emmett occupied the home some time late in 1979. Marital problems thereafter developed, and as a result, Emmett departed the following spring.

Neither Emmett nor Nancy paid anything to appellant against the $47,000 debt. Consequently, appellant undertook foreclosure under the deed of trust. At that juncture, in January, 1981, appellant had the tract surveyed, and the surveyor discovered that the house, which faces east, sits astraddle the east boundary of the tract described in the two conveyances. The southwest corner of the house is 13.1 feet west of the property line; the southeast corner of the house is 11.4 feet east of the line. A porch on the front of the house sits entirely on land owned by Dean and Mary. A rear porch sits on land owned by Emmett and Nancy. There is no problem as to the north and south boundaries; the house is comfortably distant from each.

Appellant sued Emmett, Nancy, Dean and Mary, seeking reformation of the warranty deed and the deed of trust so that the east-west dimension .of the subject tract would be 880 feet, rather than 760 feet. That is, appellant prayed for a decree reforming the description so that the south property line, beginning at the southwest corner of the described tract, would extend east 880 feet instead of 760 feet, and the north property line would likewise extend [653]*653east 880 feet from the west boundary. Appellant sought no change in the length of the east or west boundary lines. Also included in appellant’s petition were counts seeking judgment against Emmett and Nancy for the amounts due on the sums loaned them to build the home, and an unpaid balance on another note unrelated to this dispute.

The trial court entered judgment against Emmett and Nancy for the money owed by them to appellant, but denied appellant’s prayer for reformation of the warranty deed and the deed of trust. It is the latter segment of the judgment, denying reformation, that appellant attacks on this appeal.

In reaching its decision, the trial court found as a fact that the warranty deed represented the true intent of Dean and Mary with regard to the land they agreed to transfer to Emmett and Nancy, and the legal description in the warranty deed was the same as the oral description decided upon among the four of them.

The trial court held, as a conclusion of law, that the legal description in the warranty deed properly reflected the agreement of the four parties thereto, and there was no mistake by any of them regarding the land described in that instrument. Consequently, ruled the court, appellant was not entitled to reformation of the warranty deed. That being so, any issue as to reformation of the deed of trust was rendered moot.

Seeking reversal, appellant states its point thusly:

“The trial court erred in concluding reformation of the ... warranty deed, and the deed of trust did not lie in this ease, because there was no substantial evidence to support the trial court’s conclusion that ... the ... warranty deed correctly reflected the agreement of the parties as to the description of the property intended to be conveyed, in that the evidence clearly and convincingly showed that all parties to the deed intended the legal description to encompass the home site selected by Nancy ..., and the legal description in ... [the warranty deed] failed to do so.”

Appellant does not contend that Dean or Mary made any representations to it that the tract described in the warranty deed included the building site. Indeed, Wisdom, who, on appellant’s behalf, handled the loan transactions with Emmett and Nancy, admitted he never talked to Dean or Mary, nor did he go to the site either before, or during, the time the home was under construction.

Appellant’s contention is simply that the warranty deed and the deed of trust should be reformed because the tract described in those instruments, when correctly staked out on the ground, does not include the area chosen by Nancy and Emmett for their home. Appellant argues that the four parties to the warranty deed intended that ownership of the building site be transferred from Dean and Mary to Nancy and Emmett, and were mutually mistaken in believing that the site was included in the land described in that instrument.

The scope of our review in this court-tried case is established by Murphy v. Carron,

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Related

Bennett v. Director of Revenue
705 S.W.2d 118 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1986)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
674 S.W.2d 650, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 3973, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dent-county-bank-v-reary-moctapp-1984.