Grimes v. Jones

103 S.W.2d 359, 193 Ark. 858, 1937 Ark. LEXIS 88
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedMarch 29, 1937
Docket4-4572
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 103 S.W.2d 359 (Grimes v. Jones) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Grimes v. Jones, 103 S.W.2d 359, 193 Ark. 858, 1937 Ark. LEXIS 88 (Ark. 1937).

Opinion

Griffin . Smith, O. J.

Rufus O. Jones, many years after Ms marriage to. Ida A. Jones, purchased twenty acres of land which he and his wife were occupying at the time of his death in 1922.

In 1908 they executed a joint or reciprocal will, under the terms of which the survivor was to take all property, both real and personal. The husband predeceased the wife, and she became executrix of the estate. Money had been borrowed by Rufus C. Jones from the First National Bank of Rogers, and this obligation remained unpaid when he died. The claim was not filed with the executrix, or with the probate court, nor was it in any manner urged against the estate within the period of limitation.

■On September 23, 1926, after the debt had become barred, Mrs. Jones executed her note, payable to E. F. Jackson, president of the bank, in substitution of her husband’s debt of $1,000. She also gave a mortgage on the home place. The bank became insolvent, and Jackson died. On November-5, 1931, Mrs. Jones borrowed $1,000 from J. W. Grimes, appellant herein. This loan ivas made for the express purpose of taking up the Jackson ¡bank note. The home property, released' from the prior mortgage, was again pledged. In January, 1933, interest was in default, and this was evidenced by another note, issued by Mrs. Jones to Grimes for $100. Principal and interest amounted to $1,297.08 as of April 10, 1934, and later suit was filed.

Alleging in a cross-complaint that the will was void, Mrs. Jones asked that the notes and mortgage be can-celled. In support of this contention’ she alleged that after the will was executed in 1908, Rufus O. Jones formally adopted Mildred Ruth Smith, who subsequently, through marriage, became Ruth Jones Grimes, one of the appellees herein.

Ruth Jones Grimes intervened in the litigation, claiming that she was adopted by Rufus C. Jones at the April (1911) term of the Benton probate court, Avhioh was after the wills had been made, and thereafter, in legal contemplation, she became a daughter.

When the cause came on for trial the appellant, J. W. Grimes, filed a motion and petition, protesting action of the court in permitting both the defendant and intervener to change their pleadings after the case was set for trial. Specifically, the objection was that the appellees, under the amended pleadings, would be allowed to introduce an order of the probate court amending, nunc pro tunc, the original order of adoption; that the amending order was made without notice to appellant; that the first order was void ab initio; but, if not void, it could not be attacked collaterally in the chancery court proceeding. The motion was overruled.

Appellant’s complaint, seeking judgment and foreclosure, was filed February 18,1935. The petition for an order, mmc pro tunc, bears date of December, 1935. It recites that at the time Rufus C. Jones petitioned for adoption of Mildred Ruth Smith, each was a resident of 'Benton county, Arkansas; that upon a hearing on the petition, with proof, its prayer was granted and there was an order of adoption; tha,t at such hearing it was shown that both parties were residents of Benton county, but by clerical misprision the order failed to recite Ihe place of residence..The adoption order of 1911 reads: “The court finds from the evidence that Mildred Ruth Smith is a female child of the age of five years; that her parents are dead, and that she has no property. ’ ’

The order of adoption, after the correction, ■ mmc pro tunc, reads: “From the evidence adduced the court doth find that R. C. Jones filed in this court his petition praying for an order for the adoption to him of the petitioner, Mildred Ruth Simpson, who was then a child of the age of five years; that the petitioner, Mildred Ruth G-rimes and the said Mildred Ruth Smith are one and the same person; that at the time said petition was.filed and acted upon by this court both the said R. C. Jones and the said Mildred Ruth Smith were resident citizens of " Benton county, Arkansas, and that evidence of these facts was adduced upon the hearing of said petition in this court, and this court so found from said evidence that this-court made and entered of record an order and judgment adopting the said Mildred Ruth Smith to the said R. C. Jones, which said judgment appears of record in the office of the clerk of this court in record ‘J’ at page 329; that by clerical misprision the record entry of said'order and judgment does hot recite the-finding of the court that the said R. C.-Jones and the said Mildred Ruth Smith-were resident citizens of Benton county, Arkansas, and, therefore, said order -and judgment should be corrected so as to recite said findings. It'is therefore by the court considered, ordered and adjudged that the petition of the petitioner herein be and the same is granted, and that the clerk of this court be and he is hereby directed .to enter now for then the following corrected order and judgment: ‘Now on this day’is presented to the court the petition of R. C. Jones to adopt Mildred Ruth Smith, and from the evidence adduced the court finds that the petitioner, R. C. Jones, and the said Mildred Ruth Smith are each resident citizens, of Benton county, Arkansas; that the said Mildred Ruth Smith is a female child of the age of five years.; that her parents are dead, and she has no property.’ ”

This order and judgment was introduced in evidence in the chancery court, and testimony as-' to the manner in which it was procured was heard. County and Probate Judge David Compton was a-witness and said that he remembered something about the hearing ón the nunc pro tuno matter; that the petition, notice, and the affidavit of Mrs. Ida A. Jones were presented- at the same time, but that he did not remember who was present at the time the order was made. ■ '

Mrs. Ida Jones testified that on the day the. original order of adoption was made she and Mildred Ruth Smith and Rufus C. Jones were'in Bentonville; that Ruth was something over five years old when.the adoption order was made.

Miss Bess Pace, county clerk, identified the order of adoption, and stated: “I do. not know where the original papers, that is, the petition and other papers, upon which this order was .passed, are now.; We had those papers one time, then some one borrowed them- from the office. We had the papers at the time the nunc pro tunc order was made in the case in December, and I never have seen them since.”

In Morris v. Dooley, 59 Ark. 483, 28 S. W. 30, 430, it was held that “A proceeding in the probate court to> adopt a child is a special statutory proceeding', not according to the course of the common law, nor in the exercise of the court’s general jurisdiction; and a judgment rendered therein will be void upon collateral attack if neither the judgment entry nor the petition states that the child is a resident of the county.”

In Ward v. Magness, 75 Ark. 12, 86 S. W. 822, Chief Justice Hill, speaking* for the court, said: “The sole question for determination is the amendment of the record by the nunc pro tunc order of September 3, 1902. In Morris v. Dooley, 59 Ark. 483, 28-S. W. 20, 430, an order like the one in question was held void on collateral attack because the record failed to show affirmatively that the child was a resident of the county where the order was made.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
103 S.W.2d 359, 193 Ark. 858, 1937 Ark. LEXIS 88, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grimes-v-jones-ark-1937.