Lloyd v. Bond

676 S.W.2d 889, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 4046
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 7, 1984
DocketNo. 13366
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 676 S.W.2d 889 (Lloyd v. Bond) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lloyd v. Bond, 676 S.W.2d 889, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 4046 (Mo. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

HOGAN, Judge.

This is a proceeding to discover assets under the provisions of § 473.340, RSMo (Supp.1983). Max Lloyd is the personal representative of the estate of Cyble D. Lloyd, deceased. He is also her surviving spouse. Ethel Cox Bond is the decedent’s daughter by a previous marriage. The petition was laid in two counts. The first count averred that defendant Bond was in possession of personal effects, household goods and other personalty which was the property of the decedent. The alternative prayer of the first count was for possession of the personalty or for judgment for the value thereof. In the second count the petitioner alleged that a conveyance dated November 16, 1971, not delivered until June 9, 1982, was a conveyance in fraud of his marital rights within the intent of § 474.150, RSMo 1978, which read as follows:

“2. Any conveyance of real estate made by a married person at any time without the joinder or other written express assent of his spouse, made at any time, duly acknowledged, is deemed to be in fraud of the marital rights of his spouse, if the spouse becomes a surviving spouse, unless the contrary is shown.” 1

The trial court found that the items of personalty were assets of the estate and ordered them delivered. It was further found that the conveyance was made in fraud of the petitioner’s marital rights. The court imposed a special lien on the realty coextensive with the petitioner’s marital interest. Defendant appeals from the judgment entered on the second count. The questions tendered on appeal are: 1) whether the probate division had jurisdiction to try title to realty to the extent necessary to determine what assets were to be administered on, and to enforce its jurisdiction by appropriate order; 2) whether the deed was delivered to the grantee so as to be fully executed and effective before June 9, 1982, and 3) whether § 491.010, RSMo 1978, bars the testimony of a witness, who was not a party to the transaction and who had no interest therein, in a proceeding to discover assets. The first two questions must be answered yes, the third no, and the judgment must be affirmed. The opinion does not address nor extend to any question other than those just stated.

We are obliged to inquire into the trial court’s jurisdiction. Appellate jurisdiction cannot be conferred by waiver, acquiescence or even express consent. In re Estate of Youngblood, 447 S.W.2d 824, 826 (Mo.App.1969). If the trial court had no jurisdiction, this court has none. Hart v. Board of Adjustment of the City of Marshall, 616 S.W.2d 111, 113 (Mo.App.1981).

Section 473.340, which deals with the discovery of assets to be administered on in probate, has been amended several times in the last few years. The amendments have tended to expand the jurisdiction of the probate division.2 However, before § 473.-340.1 was amended in 1982, Laws of Mo. 1982, p. 646, effective August 13, 1982, the first sentence of that subsection limited the discovery procedure to “personal” property. The amendment of 1982 struck the word “personal” from the first sentence of § 473.340.1 so the first subsection now appears to include all species of property, [891]*891real, personal and mixed. In this case the petition was filed in October 1982, after the 1982 amendment had become effective.

We must assume that the General Assembly intended to change the existing law, and that it intended to pass a law which would accomplish that change. Mills v. Freeman, 581 S.W.2d 866, 867 (Mo.App.1979). Although a procedure for the recovery of real property in the probate division had been suggested, Missouri Probate Code—1980, MoBar CLE Series 76 (1980), the procedure was still circuitous, and it is manifest to this court that § 473.-340.1 was amended so the probate division could try title to all species of property which should be a part of the estate, and to enforce its decision by appropriate order. We so hold and conclude the trial court had jurisdiction.

The operative facts as they might have been found are: The decedent and her first husband owned a house and lot in Wheat-land, in Hickory County. The decedent’s first husband died in 1968. The parties have acted on the assumption that the death of the decedent’s first husband left her seized of the premises in fee simple. We indulge that assumption. By general warranty deed dated November 16, 1971, the decedent conveyed the land to herself and the respondent as joint tenants, reserving a life estate. The parties and the trial court have further assumed that this deed was effectual to vest the fee title in the decedent and her daughter as joint tenants. We also indulge this assumption.

The deed was prepared and acknowledged November 16, 1971, in an attorney’s office. The decedent instructed the attorney to keep the deed for her. When the attorney died, his daughter took charge of his papers and effects. She was given the same instruction by the decedent.

The decedent married Max Lloyd on January 18, 1976. On June 5, 1982, the decedent filed a petition for dissolution of her marriage to the petitioner. The action for dissolution was still pending when the decedent expired on July 1,1982. She had been ill for some time and for some period of that time had been in a nursing home at Warsaw. After the dissolution proceeding was filed, the respondent asked for the deed. The custodian of the deed — daughter of the decedent’s attorney — replied that she would have to obtain the decedent’s permission. The decedent was then a patient in the St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City. She consented to delivery of the deed, saying “Yes, it [will] be all right, to go ahead and record it [because the respondent] will get it sooner or later anyway.” The deed was recorded June 9, 1982.

Having dealt with the question of the trial court’s jurisdiction, we consider the matter of delivery, which the parties took as determinative at the time of trial. It is fundamental that a deed, to be operative as a transfer of the ownership of land or an interest or estate therein, must be delivered; it is delivery which gives the instrument force and effect. Galloway v. Galloway, 169 S.W.2d 883, 888 (Mo.1943). The authorities were exhaustively reviewed by this court in Turner v. Mallernee, 640 S.W.2d 517, 521 (Mo.App.1982).

As any reading of any well-written precedent, including Turner v. Mallernee, will show, such a thicket of exceptions and reservations has developed around the question of effective delivery that our courts have been reduced to saying it is the intention of the grantor which controls, and that ultimately the question whether there has been an effectual delivery depends on the facts of each case, etc. Turner v. Mallernee, 640 S.W.2d at 518-19. On the slender record before us, it is impossible to determine precisely what the grantor’s intention was at the time she executed the deed and in any case it is the time of delivery which determines the appeal at hand.

Section 474.150.2 has yet to be fully construed, but our Supreme Court considered the statute in Reinheimer v. Rhedans, 327 S.W.2d 823 (Mo.1959). The court held:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
676 S.W.2d 889, 1984 Mo. App. LEXIS 4046, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lloyd-v-bond-moctapp-1984.