Lamb v. Jones

202 So. 2d 810
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedSeptember 19, 1967
Docket66-969-66-972
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 202 So. 2d 810 (Lamb v. Jones) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lamb v. Jones, 202 So. 2d 810 (Fla. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

202 So.2d 810 (1967)

Sara S. Jones LAMB, Appellant,
v.
William T. JONES et ux., et al., Appellees.

Nos. 66-969-66-972.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

September 19, 1967.
Rehearing Denied October 23, 1967.

*812 Worley, Gautier & Patterson, Sam Daniels, Miami, for appellant.

Miller, Miller & Barkas, Beckham & McAliley, Rutledge & Milledge, Horton & Schwartz, Miami, for appellees.

Before CHARLES CARROLL, C.J., and BARKDULL and SWANN, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

The record on appeal reveals the following: The appellant and the appellee, William T. Jones, are brother and sister. They were reared in South Carolina, where the appellee, William T. Jones, presently resides. The appellant is his older sister. She was schooled as a trained nurse; he was schooled as an attorney and was admitted to the bar in South Carolina in 1949. By 1960, the appellant was married to a man by the name of Steppe and was working as a nurse for one Bronson Lamb. Her patient desired both to marry the appellant and give her $1,000,000.00 worth of stock in Liberty National Life Insurance Company [headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama] in which Bronson Lamb and his family were the major stockholders. The sister contacted her brother by telephone and received certain suggestions from him relative to securing a divorce from her then husband. accepting the transfer of the $1,000,000.00 worth of the capital stock in Liberty National Life Insurance Company from her patient, which transfer was accomplished early in 1961. Thereafter, Bronson Lamb caused his attorneys in Mobile, Alabama, to prepare a will for his execution naming the appellant as the sole beneficiary of his estate. At the time this will was executed, the appellant and Bronson Lamb had not married and she was named in the will as beneficiary under the name of Sara Jones Steppe. They were married on October 5, 1961, after her divorce from Steppe.

In November of 1961, Bronson Lamb notified the transfer agent of the Liberty National Life Insurance Company in Birmingham, Alabama, to transfer another $2,000,000.00 worth of the capital stock in the insurance company to the appellant. Because of tax consequences raised by the counsel for the insurance company, this transfer did not take place in 1961. In March of 1962, the appellant, her husband [Bronson Lamb], and the appellee [William T. Jones] journeyed to Birmingham, Alabama, for the purpose of obtaining the transfer of the additional $2,000,000.00 worth of capital stock in the aforementioned insurance company. The appellee, William T. Jones, testified in substance that the appellant advised him on the evening before the transfer that she had already received $1,000,000.00 worth of stock, and if she received the $2,000,000.00 the next day she would give him $1,000,000.00. The appellant, her husband, and the appellee proceeded to the insurance company office and the transfer took place in routine fashion, and the stock was issued in the appellant's name on March 15, 1962.

In the spring of 1962, the appellant and Bronson Lamb decided to purchase a home in Dade County, Florida. Checks totaling $87,000.00 were delivered by the appellant to her brother to consummate this purchase, and title to the property was taken in the name of the appellee, William T. Jones. Subsequent to the title being placed in his name, brother Jones caused a note to be executed and delivered to the appellant reflecting the total purchase price of $87,000.00, together with a mortgage encumbering the purchased property. Neither the note nor the mortgage were recorded.

Some time subsequent to the marriage between the appellant and Bronson Lamb, brother Jones prepared a will for his sister naming himself as the residuary legatee.

In 1963, Bronson Lamb went to a prominent lawyer in Dade County and caused an *813 inter vivos revocable trust to be prepared, which transferred $4,000,000.00 worth of the capital stock in the aforementioned insurance company to an institutional trustee, naming himself as the income beneficiary and providing that if the trust was still in existence at the time of his death the corpus of the trust should be transferred to his wife [the appellant] or, in the event she predeceased him, the corpus should go to brother Jones. On June 20, 1963, lawyer Jones caused the trust to be re-executed naming himself as trustee, as a result of which the capital stock of a value of $4,000,000.00 in the aforesaid insurance company was transferred to his possession in South Carolina. By the terms of the trust, the fee for the trustee was to be $600.00 a year.

On August 27, 1963, Bronson Lamb committed suicide. The will which had been drawn by counsel in Mobile, naming an institution as executor, was offered for probate in the State of Alabama wherein the deceased had continued to maintain a residence and domicile. Bronson Lamb's children by a prior marriage contested the will [which left everything to the appellant], contending that it was executed as a result of undue influence. At the time of the funeral, the appellant told her brother that the house in Dade County [to which he held title] was his and, on several subsequent occasions, told others that this was his house and caused to be delivered to him the note and mortgage which he had executed, reflecting the indebtedness due from him secured by the mortgage on the home.

The probatable estate in Alabama was slightly in excess of $117,000.00. Under Alabama law, a jury determines whether undue influence has been exercised and the jury, upon the trial of this issue in Alabama, was unable to reach a verdict. Therefore, the matter was scheduled to be tried a second time. Before the matter could be resubmitted to another jury, the will contest was settled by the appellant transferring shares of stock in Liberty National Life Insurance Company worth $320,000.00.

Upon the will being contested in Alabama when filed for probate, lawyer Jones and his sister went to Mobile and he helped her negotiate a fee which the Alabama lawyers would charge her for representing her in the will contest. This fee was ultimately fixed at $200,000.00.

Lawyer Jones' testimony and evidence was to the effect that he gave constant advice and counsel to his sister between the period of late 1960 through the end of November, 1964; that he appeared in no law suits and prepared no written instruments for her, other than preparing her will which named him as residual legatee and preparing the last trust agreement which named him as trustee and contingent beneficiary. In April, 1964, he requested the payment of the $1,000,000.00, claimed as a result of the transfer of the $2,000,000.00 worth of capital stock in the Liberty National Life Insurance Company in March of 1962, which she refused to make claiming there was no such understanding.

Although the terms of the inter vivos trust fixed its termination upon the death of Bronson Lamb and required the trustee to deliver the capital stock [which constituted the corpus of the trust] to the appellant, he declined to do so and she had to institute suit in early 1965 in a Federal District Court in South Carolina to cause this stock to be delivered to her.

Early in 1965 the appellant also instituted suit in the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida, against her brother and his wife, and a real estate concern, contending that she was the beneficial owner of the home purchased in Dade County although title was in her brother's name.

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Bluebook (online)
202 So. 2d 810, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lamb-v-jones-fladistctapp-1967.