Partello v. White

197 Iowa 24
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJanuary 8, 1924
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 197 Iowa 24 (Partello v. White) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Partello v. White, 197 Iowa 24 (iowa 1924).

Opinion

Vermilion, J.

Dwight J. Partello, Sr., was, for many years prior to his death, in the consular service of the United States government, stationed in various cities in Germany, and later was an agent of the United States treasury in Berlin. He was a man of culture, interested in music,'and a collector of rare porcelains, pictures, and musical instruments. He appears to have possessed considerable means, his collection of violins being valued at $75,000 or more. During the later years of his life, he seems to have divided his time between Washington, where he owned a home, and Berlin, where he also maintained [26]*26an apartment. His family consisted of two daughters and a son. The daughters, Mrs. Abell and Mrs. Von Horst, have resided much of the time abroad. The husband of the former was a musical critic and a writer on musical affairs. Mrs. Von Horst’s husband, an American citizen of German descent, who, when abroad, used the hereditary title of baron, seems to have been the founder or patron of a musical conservatory in Coburg. The son, Dwight J. Partello, Jr., before his death was in business in Chicago.

Prior to the transactions here involved, the father was the owner of a farm of 480 acres in Palo Alto County, Iowa. It is over this farm that this controversy arises. The plaintiff and appellee, Florence Shipley Partello, is the widow of the son, Dwight J. Partello, Jr., and the sole beneficiary under his will. The executor and executrix of the will of Dwight J. Partello, Sr., are defendants, and his above mentioned daughters and their husbands are defendants and appellants. The action is in equity, and the relief sought is the specific performance of an alleged contract on the part of Dwight J. Partello, Sr., to devise the farm to plaintiff.

It appears without substantial dispute that, in 1912, the father executed a warranty deed to the son for the farm in question, and sent it to the latter by mail. On January 11, 1920, the son died, at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, in Chicago, where he and his wife, Florence Partello, were living. The father arrived in Chicago a few hours after the son’s death, and both before and after the funeral made frequent inquiries concerning the deed to the Palo Alto County farm and the leases with the tenant. After some search among the son’s papers, following the funeral, the deed was found in a locked compartment of the son’s safe in his office. The deed had not been recorded. The father stated that it was of no value to the widow because of that fact, and asked that it be returned to him. The widow sought the advice of Mr. Buell, an attorney who had been the legal adviser of her husband during his life. The matter was discussed for some time, the question being that, if Mrs. Par-tello surrendered the deed, her rights should be protected in some way. Finally it was agreed that, if the father would execute a codicil to his will, devising the farm to her, she would [27]*27surrender the deed. The codicil was dictated by Mr. Buell in the father’s presence, executed by him, and properly witnessed. Thereupon, the deed was handed by the plaintiff to the father. A week later, after his return to Washington, he executed another codicil, making no reference to the former one, but providing that the farm in question should be sold and the proceeds divided equally between the plaintiff and the two daughters. The former codicil, executed in Chicago, was presumably destroyed. A carbon copy, however, had been retained by Mr. Buell in his files, and this is in evidence. Dwight J. Partello, Sr., died in August, 1920, and his will and the second codicil, executed in Washington, have been admitted to probate in the District of Columbia.

It should be said that, while the transaction in Mr. Buell’s office, as briefly detailed above, is not admitted by the defendants, it is quite clearly established by the testimony of several witnesses, among them two of the three witnesses to the codicil, one of whom was the stenographer who received the dictation of the codicil, transcribed it, and placed in Mr. Buell’s files the carbon copy in evidence. The testimony of the plaintiff herself was doubtless in large part incompetent. Mr. Buell, who dictated the codicil and was one of the attesting witnesses, died before the trial. The testimony of the two attesting witnesses is corroborated in many important respects by four other witnesses. This testimony is uncontradicted. We must regard the finding of the deed to the farm among the effects of the son, its possession by the plaintiff, his sole devisee, the execution of the codicil by the father, and the surrender of the deed under the circumstances narrated above, as fully established by competent evidence. And further, as to the effect of this transaction, it is equally clear that the plaintiff surrendered the deed in consideration of the promise of the father to execute a codicil to his will devising the farm to her; and that, in pursuance of such promise and in consideration of the surrender to him of the deed, the latter, at the time, fully executed the codicil contemplated by their agreement. The principal — indeed, the real— controversy in this case is over the question whether this contract is enforcible at the suit of the plaintiff. Much of the voluminous record is given over to testimony relating to the [28]*28delivery of the deed by the father to the son, — whether conditional, and if so, upon what conditions it was made; and these questions have been argued at great length, especially by counsel for appellants.

The specific relief asked in the petition is the enforcement of the alleged contract to devise the farm to plaintiff. Although the plaintiff alleges that the title to the land was in her husband by virtue of the deed, and passed to her by his will, it is apparent that she is not now asserting a title based on the deed, but upon the contract. She sets up her surrender of the deed as the consideration for the contract upon which she relies; and, while she does not, in terms, aver that, by. surrendering the deed, she became divested of the title, such is the plain inference to be drawn from her pleading. It may be that the mere surrender of bis deed by the grantee to the grantor does not divest the title of the former; but, as will presently be seen, the situation here is much more than that; and after her surrender of the deed, under the circumstances disclosed, the plaintiff eould_ not have been heard to assert title under it. She does not now rely upon a title so derived. It follows that the questions whether the deed was delivered by the father to the son, or what, if any, conditions were attached to the manual delivery of it, are not determinative of the plaintiff’s claim. Appellants have, however, made the contention that there was no delivery, or a conditional delivery, a basis for their argument that there was no consideration for the contract of the father to devise the farm to plaintiff. Upon the assumption that one or the other of these propositions has been established, it is argued that, since plaintiff had nothing by virtue of the deed, she parted with nothing in surrendering it, and therefore the contract of the father was without consideration. In the aspect, then, of its relation to the question of consideration, both in respect to appellant’s argument and in respect to plaintiff’s good faith in asserting some claim under the deed before she surrendered it, rather than upon it as, in and of itself, determinative of the case, the question of delivery will be considered.

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Bluebook (online)
197 Iowa 24, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/partello-v-white-iowa-1924.