Estate of Wardell Ex Rel. Wardell v. Dailey

674 S.W.2d 293, 1983 Tenn. App. LEXIS 662
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedDecember 9, 1983
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 674 S.W.2d 293 (Estate of Wardell Ex Rel. Wardell v. Dailey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Wardell Ex Rel. Wardell v. Dailey, 674 S.W.2d 293, 1983 Tenn. App. LEXIS 662 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinions

OPINION

SANDERS, Judge.

The Appellant, Charles Robert Wardell, Jr., has appealed from a chancery decree imposing a resulting trust on certain checking accounts and certificates of deposit in the joint names of himself and his deceased father.

Charles Robert Warded, Sr., died testate in Knox County in March, 1982. He left surviving him his wife, Anna Mae Warded, as the sole beneficiary of his will. He also left surviving him a son, Appellant Charles Robert Warded, Jr., and a daughter, Appel-lee Charlotte Mae Warded Dailey. The will provided the son and daughter should act as co-executors of the will upon failure of the wife to so qualify. It also provided for an equal division of the properties of his estate between them in the event his wife should predecease him.

The wife was physically and mentally incapable of qualifying as executrix and the son and daughter qualified as co-executors. After qualifying as co-executors they were unable to agree as to the ownership of the bulk of the estate which consisted of approximately $375,000 which the deceased had placed in the joint names of himself and Charles Robert Warded, Jr., composed of a checking account and some 15 certificates of deposit and money market certificates. It was the insistence of the Appellant that these funds passed to him by virtue of his survivorship of his father, while the Appellee contended he held the funds in trust and they should go to their mother under the provisions of the will.

The Appellant filed a petition in the chancery court in the nature of a declaratory judgment asking the court to hear proof and determine how the monies were held and how they should pass.

The Appellee filed a counter complaint in which she asked the court to declare a resulting trust on the monies in the joint accounts for the benefit of their mother.

In his determination of the case the court found the funds did pass to the Appellant upon the death of his father but he further declared a trust on the funds, finding they were to be used for the benefit of the father if he became disabled and to be used for his wife’s benefit in the event the father should predecease her. The court held the Appellant should use the funds to maintain the home and for the benefit of the mother, to provide for her care, upkeep, medical care, and everything reasonably required. He found the trust should remain in effect so long as Mrs. Wardell lives and upon her death the trust would terminate and any unused funds at her death would go to the Appellant and the Appellee in equal shares as the heirs of Mr. Warded, Sr.

On appeal the Appellant has presented the following issues for review: “1. Does a joint bank account agreement with right of survivorship establish a contract which transfers the account proceeds at the death by operation of law? 2. Can the Courts create a Trust out of a joint and survivor-ship account to require the survivor to hold the money in Trust for the lifetime of his mother and then be required to divide the corpus of the Trust with his sister at the mother’s death?”

We think the answer to both of these issues is in the affirmative. The leading case in this jurisdiction on the question of the right of a survivor under a joint certificate of deposit with the right of survivor-ship is Lowry v. Lowry, 541 S.W.2d 128 (Tenn.1976). In that case the court held that, absent clear and convincing evidence of a contrary intention, a joint account [295]*295agreement with rights of survivorship established a contract which transfers the account’s proceeds at death to the survivor by operation of law. However, there is nothing in that opinion which would indicate that a donor of the funds under such contract may not impose such conditions as to create a trust in the donee.

“Resulting trusts are those which arise where the legal estate is disposed of, or acquired, without bad faith, and under such circumstances that Equity infers or assumes that the beneficial interest in said estate is not to go with the legal title. These trusts are sometimes called presumptive trusts, because the law presumes them to be intended by the parties from the nature and character of their transactions. They are, however, generally called resulting trusts, because the trust is the result which Equity attaches to the particular transaction. Gibson’s Suits in Chancery, § 382 (6th Ed.1982).

As a tool of equity, the resulting trust will be decreed when necessary “to prevent a failure of justice.” 76 Am.Jur.2d Trusts § 196 (1975). In Wells v. Wells, 556 S.W.2d 769, 771 (Tenn.App.1977), this court stated that such “trusts are judge-created trusts or doctrines which enable a court, without violating all rules of logic, to reach an interest in property belonging to one person yet titled in and held by another.”

The resulting trust may be created in a variety of situations, for example “[wjhere a deed by father to son is shown to be for the benefit of the mother.” Gibson’s Suits in Chancery, § 976, n. 2 (5th Ed.1956). This court, more than fifty years ago, in Savage v. Savage, 4 Tenn.App. 277 (1927), confronted a somewhat similar situation. There, the plaintiff, after purchasing a lot with a house on it, had conveyed the same to his father to be held in trust for the former and other third persons, while the former went “north, [to] work where he could get better wages” in order to pay off the notes on the land. Id. at 279. While the plaintiff/son was absent, the father remarried and later died, after which the widow claimed the land. In establishing a resulting trust in favor of the son, the court stated that “[w]hen property is conveyed or given by one person to another, to hold for the use of a third person, such a trust will thereby be created as will give equity jurisdiction to compel the application to the purposes of the trust.” Id. at 284.

The equitable power to establish a resulting trust applies with respect to both real and personal property. 89 C.J.S. Trusts § 98 (1955). In either case, “[i]t is ... uniformly held that resulting trusts may be, and generally are, proved by parol evidence.” Chappell v. Dawson, 202 Tenn. 672, 308 S.W.2d 420, 422 (1957). See also Butler v. Rutledge, 42 Tenn. (2 Cold.) 4 (1865); Savage, supra, 4 Tenn.App. at 283. See generally 89 C.J.S. Trusts § 101, 133 (1955); Gibson’s Suits in Chancery, § 976, n. 2 (5th Ed.1956). However, when one attempts to create a resulting trust on the basis of parol evidence, such a trust must be shown by more than a mere preponderance of the evidence. See Stone v. Manning, 103 Tenn. 232, 235, 52 S.W. 990 (1899); Browder v. Hite, 602 S.W.2d 489 (Tenn.App.1980). Instead, “[w]hile an implied or resulting trust may be established by parol evidence, yet both upon reason and authority the courts will not enforce it, unless it be established by the most convincing and irrefragable evidence. In other words, it must be sustained by proof of the clearest and most convincing character.

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Bluebook (online)
674 S.W.2d 293, 1983 Tenn. App. LEXIS 662, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-wardell-ex-rel-wardell-v-dailey-tennctapp-1983.