Frost v. Frost

98 S.W. 527, 200 Mo. 474, 1906 Mo. LEXIS 367
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 22, 1906
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 98 S.W. 527 (Frost v. Frost) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Frost v. Frost, 98 S.W. 527, 200 Mo. 474, 1906 Mo. LEXIS 367 (Mo. 1906).

Opinion

VALLIANT, J.

Plaintiff is the wife of defendant. There are two counts in her petition. In the first it is alleged that the plaintiff and defendant jointly owned certain land in Clinton county, each owning an undivided half, which they sold for $3,000; that defendant collected and appropriated to his own use the whole sum, therefore plaintiff asks judgment for $1,500 and interest. In the second count it is alleged that in 1888 plaintiff and defendant being then husband and wife and residing in Missouri each owning “certain moneys” (how much each owned is not stated) invested those moneys in certain real estate in Clinton county “taking the title to said real estate in their names jointly, each owning an undivided half interest therein;” that in 1901 by their joint deed they sold the Clinton county land for $3,000, all of which sum came into the possession of defendant and with it he purchased 200 acres in Cass county at the price of $6,000; paying therefor $4,000 cash and executing a deed of trust for the remaining $2,000; that of the $4,000' cash, $3,000 was the proceeds of the Clinton county land, one-half of which plaintiff avers was her own separate estate; that at the time of the purchase of the Cass county land it was agreed between the plaintiff and defendant “that [479]*479the deed shotdd he made to plaintiff and defendant jointly, giving to each one his respective share or interest, in the same manner that the title to the real estate in said Clinton county was held,” hut that in violation of that agreement defendant, without the knowledge or consent of plaintiff, took the title in his own name, in consequence, by implication of law, a trust has resulted in plaintiff’s favor. The prayer is that defendant be decreed to have taken the title, to the extent that her $1,500 represent the purchase money in the land in trust for her use. There was also a prayer for general relief. The answer was a general denial except the admission that plaintiff and defendant were husband and wife.

The cause was tried by the court without a jury. There was a finding of the issues for the defendant on the first count and judgment accordingly, from which there was no appeal. That count therefore is out of our way.

On the second count the finding and judgment were for the plaintiff, the judgment being that the plaintiff recover of defendant $1,400 and interest, viz., $1,436.63, for which execution was awarded and also that for satisfaction of the same the plaintiff should have a lien on the Cass county land. From that judgment the defendant has appealed.

At the trial the plaintiff endeavored to prove that some of her money went into the purchase of the Clinton county land; her proof on that point however was very vague and unsatisfactory. If she were here attacking the deed to the Clinton county land, seeking to reform it so as to establish a title by resulting trust in her favor on the ground that her husband used her money to purchase the land, her suit would fail because her proof is not sufficient; but such is not the character of this suit, she is not attacking the Clinton county deed, and the defendant is not disputing its terms.

[480]*480Here the plaintiff comes alleging that she was the owner in fee as her separate statutory estate, of an individual half of the Clinton county land and relies on the deed conveying that land to her and her husband to prove that title. She says in her petition that when that land was sold it was agreed between her and her husband, that the proceeds should be invested in the Cass county land, “and that the deed should be made to the plaintiff and defendant jointly, giving to each one his respective share or interest in the same manner that the title to the real estate in Clinton county was held.” She stands on that Clinton county deed as it is, and avers that it gave her an undivided half of the land as her separate estate. But when the deed was produced in evidence it showed that the title was not as she alleged, but that it vested in her and her husband as an estate in entirety. Neither she nor her husband owned a half interest, they each owned the whole interest while both should live, and the' survivor would have the whole when either should die. While they both lived in the marital relation she would have the equal enjoyment of the property with her husband and in that qualified sense it might perhaps be said she had a half interest, but in addition to that right she had the contingent prospect of owning it all, and of that contingent right her husband could not deprive her.

Washburn, speaking of estates in entirety, says: “But if the estate is conveyed to them originally as husband and wife, they are neither tenants in common nor properly joint-tenants, though having the right of survivorship, but are what are called tenants by entirety. While such estates have, like a joint-tenancy, the quality of survivorship, they differ from that in this essential respect, that neither can convey his or her interest so as to affect the right of survivorship in the other. They are not seized, in the eye of the law, [481]*481of moieties, but of entireties.” [1 Washburn, R. P. (6 Ed.), p. 562.]

The common law doctrine of estates in entirety is the law of this State. [Hall v. Stephens, 65 Mo. 670; Bank v. Fry, 168 Mo. 492.]

The text-writer last above quoted on the same subject adds that on the death of either the survivor does not acquire a new title, but holds only the same title which he or she took in the beginning, freed of the contingency. .

An estate in entirety is not a joint tenancy in which each holds an individual right. A joint tenant may destroy the joint tenancy and thereby destroy the right of survivorship by conveying his right to a third person, in which event his former co-tenant and the third person to whom the conveyance is made become, as to each other, tenants in common. But neither the husband nor the wife in an estate of entirety can so destroy the character of the estate as to prevent the survivor becoming the sole owner. An estate in entirety is a peculiar common, law estate sometimes said to be founded on the common law doctrine that the husband and wife are one. Perhaps it will not do to say that the estate rests entirely on that foundation, because sometimes we say that when the reason for a certain law ceases the law founded on the reason also ceases. Modern legislation has done much to destroy the unity of husband and wife, yet in spite of such legislation it has been held in this State and elsewhere that estates in entirety remain as at common law. [Hall v. Stephens, 65 Mo. 670; Bains v. Bullock, 129 Mo. 117; Bank v. Fry, 168 Mo. 492; Wilson v. Frost, 186 Mo. 311; Baker v. Stewart, 40 Kan. 442.]

Whilst estates in entirety originated in the common law and were therefore in harmony with the ancient theory that the husband and wife were one, yet, that [482]*482such estates did not arise as a necessity from .that theory is shown by the fact that the common law also recognized that the husband and wife might become tenants in common. [1 Washburn, R. P. .(6 Ed.), p. 562; 4 Kent (14 Ed.), p. 414.] Therefore, the Married Woman’s statutes, by dispelling the idea of the unity of husband and wife, do not abolish or alter the char- ■ acter of estates in entirety.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
98 S.W. 527, 200 Mo. 474, 1906 Mo. LEXIS 367, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/frost-v-frost-mo-1906.