Frank J. Kozak v. Willard B. Wells, Administrator, Etc.

278 F.2d 104, 84 A.L.R. 2d 1400, 3 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 445, 1960 U.S. App. LEXIS 4735
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedApril 26, 1960
Docket16364_1
StatusPublished
Cited by93 cases

This text of 278 F.2d 104 (Frank J. Kozak v. Willard B. Wells, Administrator, Etc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Frank J. Kozak v. Willard B. Wells, Administrator, Etc., 278 F.2d 104, 84 A.L.R. 2d 1400, 3 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 445, 1960 U.S. App. LEXIS 4735 (8th Cir. 1960).

Opinion

BLACKMUN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal by Frank J. Kozak, Josephine Peterka and Emil Cwach, citizens of South Dakota, from the district court’s order dated August 13, 1959, denying each appellant’s separate motion for leave to intervene as a plaintiff. The appellees who have appeared here (Willard B. Wells, as Administrator of the Estate of William L. Bruce, deceased, Lillian Fejfar Griffin and Louis B. French) are 3 of several defendants in what we shall call the main action. The court’s ■order also dealt with 25 other motions, filed by parties to the main action, which had accumulated and' were pending; some of these were granted, some were denied and some were dismissed as being moot. By order of .this court the printing of the record on this appeal was excused and the original file of the district court is before us in its entirety, This file has been carefully reviewed.

The appeal found its place on our calendar for the March Session. The appellees’ case was noted as submitted on their brief. On the hearing day the appellants filed a written motion that oral argument be reset to a later date. No grounds for this were specified. The motion was therefore denied and the appellants’ case is also taken on briefs under this court’s Rule 13(g), 28 U.S.C.A.

The main action, instituted September 6, 1957, is a diversity case brought by citizens of Maryland, namely, Emma Janousek, as widow, heir and Administratrix of the Estate of Joseph Janousek, deceased, and by said decedent’s 2 childrén, Eunice Janousek and Joseph O. Janousek, who are the other heirs, against a number of citizens of South Dakota, and against Lillian Fejfar Griffin who may be described at this point in the litigation as a citizen of either Iowa or South Dakota.

It is not necessary, for purposes of this appeal, to set forth in detail the allegations of the pleadings in the main action and it .suffices merely to summarize them, The amended complaint, filed August 25, 1959, by leave of court upon motion and after notice, asserts the jurisdictional amount and contains 2 counts. The first count refers to the establishment of a townsite called Janousek, between Yank-ton and Tabor in Yankton County, South Dakota, after litigation culminating in Nedved v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Railway Co., 36 S.D. 1, 153 N.W. 886, .decided by the Supreme Court of South Dakota in 1915. The decedent Joseph Janousek participated as counsel for the successful parties in that litigation. A surveyor’s certificate and plat of the townsite, consisting of over 100 lots owned by the decedent was filed for record in 1916 and contained a dedication to public use forever by the decedent and his wife, one of the present plaintiffs, of the streets and alleys shown on the plat, The plaintiffs then allege the decedent’s exercise of ownership over the townsite until his death on November 1, 1918, and his sale of lots therefrom; a lack of knowledge until recently on the part of aiW °f plaintiffs of the extent of the decedent s ownership of property in the townsite; the status of the appellee Wells decedent Bruce as a trusted business advisor of Janousek’s widow; a series of acts by Bruce and other defend-an^s °f domination over most of the townsite by way of a trust, court proceedings, instruments of conveyance and the like> amounting to an unlawful confederation between Bruce Mrs. Griffin and ^ G5fn s parent^ to d^e the Pontiffs of their property m theitown; ^representation and fraud on the part of ®race and G,nffi“ and mallf°f effort °n ^eir part to efface and destroy the ^entity and existence of the town; trespass by Mrs; 6nffln upon the plaintiffs’ property Wlth p ows and excavating equipment; and destruction of streets, alleys, curbs and sidewalks, closing off of public thoroughfares and the like. The relief requested includes the annulment °f a 1919 state court trusteeship order and of a 1948 state court title judgment, the invalidation of certain deeds, the quieting of plaintiffs’ title in specified *107 lots and of the title of other lots in named persons, accountings, and an injunction. The second count incorporates the allegations of the first, alleges injury and malice and seeks judgment for compensatory and punitive damages.

By separate amended answer Griffin sets forth a general denial; alleges that the decedent Janousek’s title to lots in the townsite was as trustee only and that this interest terminated upon his death; specifically denies all allegations of confederation, concealment, fraud and deception, and raises the affirmative defenses of the statutes of limitations, estoppel, laches and res judicata. Similar defenses are alleged by Wells and French in separate answers. Answers were also filed by other defendants.

The respective motions for leave to intervene were filed by Kozak on February 12, 1958, and by Peterka and Cwach on August 15, 1958. This was after the filing of an answer by one defendant (Wagner), of plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend their complaint, and of motions by Bruce, French and Griffin to dismiss and to strike the plaintiffs’ pleadings, but before the court’s order of August 13, 1959, which also granted leave to file the amended complaint and denied the motions to dismiss and to strike, and before the other answers were filed. Each intervention motion is accompanied by the pleading, here in the form of a complaint, required by Rule 24(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A.

Kozak, by his complaint in intervention, alleges that he is the owner of 6 lots in the townsite, that one of these is improved by a residence and outbuildings and is presently occupied by Kozak’s father, and that, except for his intervention, he would be denied relief and is without adequate representation of his interests and will or may be bound by the judgment and orders in the main action, He then alleges with respect to his property acts of trespass and destruction similar to those in the plaintiffs’ complaint, including destruction of public streets and alleys, curb lines, sidewalks, his boundary markers, etc., and specifically states that the sole access he and his father have to the residence is by a roadway, which is the only public street of the town not yet unlawfully obstructed, and that the defendants or some of them have threatened to fence and plow this street and thus deny the intervener ac~ cess to his property. Kozak seeks an rajunction and an accounting,

Peterka by her complaint claims an undivided interest in one lot in the town-site and alleges that Bruce by a 1941 deed purported to convey some interest in that lot to the father of Griffin, that Bruce had no interest in the lot, that Griffin’s parents quit-claimed the lot to Griffin in 1946, that this was part of an unlawful confederation to deprive the intervener of her property and to destroy and eliminate the town. _ Allegations sim^ar ^ose plaintiffs complaint are then made or incorporated. Peterka dmms that she is without adequate representation of her interests in the main acddon and that sne will be bound by the resu^ thereoj.. Sne seeks the voiding of deeds’. the annulment of the state court judgment, the quieting of title of ^er ^ interest> an accounting and an injunction.

Cwach’s complaint alleges his ownersbiP of a lot in the townsite, the sustain- ^nS of trespass and wrongs similar to those alleged by the plaintiffs, the absence of adequate representation, and his being bound by orders and judgment in the main action. He also seeks an injunction and an accounting,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
278 F.2d 104, 84 A.L.R. 2d 1400, 3 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 445, 1960 U.S. App. LEXIS 4735, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/frank-j-kozak-v-willard-b-wells-administrator-etc-ca8-1960.