Dunn v. Dunn

786 So. 2d 1045, 2001 WL 553913
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedMay 24, 2001
Docket2000-CA-00714-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 786 So. 2d 1045 (Dunn v. Dunn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dunn v. Dunn, 786 So. 2d 1045, 2001 WL 553913 (Mich. 2001).

Opinion

786 So.2d 1045 (2001)

Todd W. DUNN
v.
Judy H. DUNN.

No. 2000-CA-00714-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

May 24, 2001.

*1047 David Michael Brisolara, Attorney for Appellant.

Dolton W. McAlpin, Starkville, Attorney for Appellee.

Before McRAE, P.J., DIAZ and EASLEY, JJ.

EASLEY, Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. Todd W. Dunn ("Todd") appeals this case from the Chancery Court of Oktibbeha County. The case sub judice involves the reformation of a warranty deed. On September 24, 1999, Judy H. Dunn ("Judy"), Todd's mother, filed her Complaint for Reformation of Warranty Deed and Other Relief. Judy sought to have two of three tracts of land removed from her warranty deed made to Todd on September 25, 1998. The complaint also sought to temporarily and permanently enjoin Todd from taking steps to remove Judy from the house. Judy filed a Motion for Temporary Relief on October 7, 1999. On October 12, 1999, Todd filed his Affirmative Defenses, Answers and Counter-Complaint. Judy filed her Answer to the Counter-Complaint on October 19, 1999. Todd filed his Response to Plaintiffs Motion for Temporary Relief on October 28, 1999.

¶ 2. On November 8, 1999, the chancellor held a hearing on temporary relief. On November 22, 1999, the chancellor signed an order granting Judy exclusive possession and use and occupancy of the residence during the pendency of the action and immediate possession of her personal items. The chancellor also allowed the complaint to be amended to add Merchants and Farmers Bank as a party defendant to the action. Merchants and Farmers Bank filed its answer to the Complaint for Reformation of Warranty Deed and Other Relief on January 31, 2000.

¶ 3. The court on February 16, 2000, held the final hearing in this matter. The court on April 3, 2000, issued its opinion and instructed the Plaintiff to prepare the order. On April 20, 2000, the court entered its judgment reforming the deed in favor of Judy and denying Todd's counterclaims. On April 21, 2000, Todd filed a Motion for Reconsideration, Suggestion of Error and Request for Stay of Execution with the lower court. The court on April 21, 2000, denied the motion.

¶ 4. On April 26, 2000, Todd's attorney filed a notice of appeal to this Court from the final judgment and the denial of the Motion for Reconsideration, Suggestion of Error and Request for Stay of Execution. On May 17, 2000, then Chief Justice Lenore L. Prather ordered the Chancery Court of Oktibbeha County to submit findings of fact in denying the emergency stay. On June 8, 2000, having received the chancellor's findings of fact, then Presiding Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman likewise denied the motion for emergency stay of execution.

¶ 5. It is from this denial of the motion for emergency stay of execution and from the final judgment the trial court that Todd now appeals to this Court.

FACTS

¶ 6. Judy owned three tracts of real property, consisting of 40 acres with a house, 59.4 acres of pasture land and an easement. It should be noted for clarification purposes that at different points in the transcript of the hearing, the 59.4 *1048 acres are also described as 60 acres, but it is the same property. Todd is Judy's son. Judy had lost her long-held employment at Mississippi State University. She had been absent from work for 37½ days. She had been passing bad checks. Judy had gotten behind on the payments on the house and 40 acres and the other 59.4 acres as well. Both properties, the 40 acres with the house and the 59.4 acres, were secured by two different lenders. A foreclosure notice on the house and 40 acres ran in the newspaper. At this point, Judy's family discovered her financial condition. Barbara Dunn Rogers, Judy's sister-in-law, sister of her deceased husband and wife of attorney Russ Rogers, called Judy about the foreclosure notice that she saw in the newspaper.

¶ 7. Attorney Russ Rogers, Judy's brother-in-law and Todd's uncle, prepared the warranty deed conveying all three tracts of land from Judy to Todd. Rogers stated that he was only trying to help out his family. Rogers's secretary, Judy Black, was the person who had typed the warranty deed in 1998. Black testified that she notarized Judy's signature after Judy read and signed the deed in front of her in her office. Black also testified that Judy asked about the house not being listed in the deed. Black testified that she explained to Judy that the warranty deed listed the 40 acres and that since the house sat on the 40 acres that the deed covered everything.

¶ 8. Jim Cook, senior lending officer at Merchants and Farmers, handled two loans involving the 40 acres and the 59.4 acres properties, in September 1998 and January 1999. Cook testified that due to the timing of the pending foreclosure that there was not much time to handle the transactions on the property. Cook stated that it was his understanding all along that Todd would be borrowing sufficient funds to cover all the obligations to the mortgage companies on both the 40 acres and 59.4 acres, and he would then in return put up the 40 acres and 59.4 acres properties as collateral on the loan from Merchants and Farmers. Cook testified that Judy seemed to understand everything that was going on the day she came in the bank. Judy did not ask Cook any questions and signed the note.

¶ 9. Judy deeded all three tracts to Todd. Judy borrowed $24,820.79 in September 1998, to pay off the mortgage on the 59.4 acres of $16,000.00, to stop the impending foreclosure on the house and 40 acres of $6,823.41 and $1,753.46 to cover a small personal loan. Todd used the property to secure a note for $65,000.00 in January 1999, from Merchants and Farmers to pay off the original mortgage of $34,396.70 on the house and 40 acres with First Nationwide Mortgage Company, $24,820.79 to pay off the loan Judy made in 1998 with Merchants and Farmers, and $5,782.51 to use for repairs to the house.

DISCUSSION

I. Did the Court err in its additional findings of facts submitted to the Mississippi Supreme Court in support of the Court's denial of the Defendant's Motion for Stay of Execution?

¶ 10. Todd raises the issue on appeal that the chancellor erred in the additional findings of fact that were supplied to this Court. On April 21, 2000, Todd's attorney filed a Motion for Reconsideration, Suggestion of Error and Request for Stay of Execution. The chancellor on or about April 21, 2000, denied the Motion for Stay of Execution. Todd appealed the denial of the stay of execution on April 26, 2000, to this Court. On May 17, 2000, then Chief Justice Lenore L. Prather ordered that the Chancery Court of Oktibbeha County *1049 had fifteen (15) days from entry of its order to provide this Court with its findings of fact concerning the irreparable and disproportionate harm which will occur to Judy W. Dunn and Merchants and Farmers Bank if the stay were granted. The chancellor supplied her findings to this Court. On June 8, 2000, then Presiding Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman, ordered that Todd's Emergency Motion for Stay be denied.

¶ 11. Todd untimely raised this issue. Todd raised on appeal other issues from the final hearing that dealt with the reformation of the warranty deed. Any decision of this Court as to the other issues surrounding the reformation of the warranty deed raised within this same appeal would render the emergency stay of execution moot by the time this Court decided the reformation issues. This issue as to the emergency stay of execution which was decided by this Court on June 8, 2000, is moot.

II.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
786 So. 2d 1045, 2001 WL 553913, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dunn-v-dunn-miss-2001.