Owens v. Hill

1941 OK 269, 122 P.2d 801, 190 Okla. 239, 1941 Okla. LEXIS 399
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 16, 1941
DocketNo. 29309.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 1941 OK 269 (Owens v. Hill) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Owens v. Hill, 1941 OK 269, 122 P.2d 801, 190 Okla. 239, 1941 Okla. LEXIS 399 (Okla. 1941).

Opinion

HURST, J.

This action involves title to an undivided three thirty-fifths interest in the allotment of Thomas J. Hill in Garvin county. The material facts are these: The allottee died intestate leaving five brothers and sisters of the whole blood and a brother and a sister of the half blood. W. R. Hill was a brother of the whole blood. His wife was Lucile Hill. Plaintiff Bess Lucile Hill is their only child. On May 10, 1913, J. E. Hill, a brother of the whole blood, conveyed his interest to W. R. Hill; on September 1, 1913, W. R. Hill conveyed all his interest to Lucile Hill; and on September 10, 1913, Uda Polk, a sister of the whole blood, conveyed her interest to Lucile Hill. On October 4, 1913, the district court of Garvin county entered a decree in partition finding that the five brothers and sisters of the whole blood and the two of the half blood inherited equally the allotment. On November 6, 1913, Lucile Hill and W. R. Hill conveyed a three-sevenths interest in the allotment to J. E. Hill, one of the five brothers and sisters of the whole blood. An appeal was taken from the said judgment of October 4, 1913, and in 1916 this court, in Hill v. Hill, 58 Okla. 707, 160 P. 1116, modified the judgment and held that the five brothers and sisters of the whole blood inherited the allotment to the exclusion of the brother and sister of the half blood. This left title to six thirty-fifths of the allotment vested in *240 Lueile Hill, since there was conveyed to her three-fifths of the allotment and she conveyed three-sevenths. Lueile Hill died intestate in 1914, leaving her husband, W. R. Hill, and the plaintiff, her only child, as sole heirs, and they each inherited three thirty-fifths interest. Plaintiff filed this action to establish her three thirty-fifths interest (13-5/7 acres) in the land and for possession. It is not disputed that the defendants own all the interest in the land save that owned by plaintiff, if any. The trial court held for plaintiff, and the defendants appeal.

Defendants make two contentions, which will be disposed of in the order presented.

1. Defendants first contend that the findings of the trial court that a deed bearing date of September 12, 1914, purporting to have been executed by Lueile Hill and W. R. Hill, conveying the land to J. E. Hill, was not signed by Lueile Hill was clearly against the weight of the evidence. They cite numerous decisions of this court, such as Dyal v. Norton, 47 Okla. 794, 150 P. 703, and Probert v. Caswell, 90 Okla. 67, 215 P. 733, which announce the general rule that in order to impeach the certificate of acknowledgment to a deed, the evidence must be clear, cogent, and convincing, and such as produces a conviction amounting to a moral certainty that the certificate is false.

The uncontroverted testimony of plaintiff’s grandmother was that Lueile Hill, mother of plaintiff, was afflicted with tuberculosis, and that for several months prior to her death she had been confined in a sanitarium at El Paso, Tex., where she died September 19, 1914. The grandmother testified that she went to El Paso about the middle of August, 1914, and remained there in attendance upon her daughter until the death of the latter, and that her daughter was not in Garvin county on September 12, 1914; that her daughter was at all times from the middle of August to the date of her death confined in the El Paso sanitarium; that the witness brought the body of her daughter to Pauls Valley, and buried her there the first of the following week. While defendants argue that the memory of the witness might have easily caused her to err as to the date of her daughter’s death, no effort was made to show by any witness, or by any record, that the death and burial of plaintiff’s mother did not occur at the times designated by this witness, or that plaintiff’s mother was in Oklahoma on September 12, 1914. The plaintiff testified that she was not quite four years old when her mother died, and that she remembered the occurrence; that they would not let her see her mother that morning, and that her grandmother was in El Paso at the time.

The notary public whose name was signed to the certificate testified that he left Garvin county early in the year 1914, and did not return until 1918; that during that time he left his seal in an unlocked desk in the abstract office where he had been employed, and that he did not return to Garvin county during that time, and did not take any acknowledgments in said county during that period. His testimony is likewise uncontradicted and unimpeached.

The original deed was not produced. Defendant Long testified that he saw the deed but did not examine it and that he paid no attention to the signatures. He admitted that he knew plaintiff’s mother was sick in El Paso, and was down there for some time before she died, and that W. R. Hill was at home while she was down there. W. R. Hill was not available as a witness.

We think the evidence amply sustains the finding of the trial court. The presumption of the verity and conclusiveness of a certificate of acknowledgment will not prevail over physical facts established by undisputed evidence, which are directly contrary to, and which rebut, the truth of its recitals. Caldwell v. City of Ottumwa, 198 Iowa, 666, 200 N. W. 336. Especially is this true when the notary’s testimony that he was not in the county when the acknowledgment was taken is also uncontroverted.

*241 Defendants argue that this evidence only tended to prove an alibi, and cite Kentucky West Virginia Gas Co. v. Maynard, 242 Ky. 490, 46 S. W. 788, and Rabassa v. Raab, 95 N. J. Eq. 255, 122 Atl. 309, as authorities supporting the assertion that proof of an alibi is not sufficient to impeach the certificate. The variance between the evidence in these cases and that in the present case is so great that we do not consider them persuasive.

The rule in this state is that the testimony of the grantor may in some cases, when supported by the circumstances and probabilities of the particular case, be sufficient to overthrow the certificate. Garber v. Hauser, 76 Okla. 292, 185 P. 436; Hine v. Simon, 95 Okla. 86, 218 P. 1072; Pittsburg Coal & Mining Co. v. Wright, 122 Okla. 210, 253 P. 487; Equitable Farm Mortgage Co. v. Leeper, 166 Okla. 231, 26 P. 2d 931; Mathers v. Quinn, 184 Okla. 364, 87 P. 2d 331. Here the testimony of the grandmother and of the notary established that the deed could not have been executed and acknowledged at the time and place designated in the certificate, and there is no evidence from which a reasonable inference may be drawn that it was signed and acknowledged at any other time or place.

2. The second contention of defendants is that plaintiff’s mother held the interest in controversy as trustee for her husband, W. R. Hill. They base this contention upon the facts that the evidence shows that W. R. Hill at all times dealt with the interest in the Thomas J. Hill allotment, which was in his wife’s name, in the same way that he did with property owned by him; that he was heavily indebted, and was placing his property in the names of other persons to place it beyond reach of his creditors; and that by a contract with defendant Long, made by W. R. Hill in the name of J. E. Hill instead of his own, he agreed to sell the interest vested in his wife for $75 per acre, and actually did sell the three-sevenths interest to Long.

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Bluebook (online)
1941 OK 269, 122 P.2d 801, 190 Okla. 239, 1941 Okla. LEXIS 399, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/owens-v-hill-okla-1941.