Shaw v. Addison

28 N.W.2d 816, 239 Iowa 377, 1947 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 426
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedSeptember 16, 1947
DocketNo. 47012.
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 28 N.W.2d 816 (Shaw v. Addison) 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
Shaw v. Addison, 28 N.W.2d 816, 239 Iowa 377, 1947 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 426 (iowa 1947).

Opinion

MulRONEy, J.

The decedent, John Heber Duro, was born in England in 1881 and came to the United States and to Des Moines in 1903. For a time he worked as a coal miner and later engaged'in various businesses, including what appears to be a dominant relationship with various corporations engaged chiefly wilh coal-mining operations. He also engaged extensively in the buying and selling of bonds, stocks, and securities through various brokerage concerns. In 1907 he was married to Ella Gaedke and to this marriage one child, Louise, was boi*n. His wife, died in 1919, when Louise was about seven years old, leaving a will naming her husband as executor and leaving ail her property to Louise. John Heber Duro qualified as executor but never filed an inventory or any other reports in the estate and the evidence does not disclose just what the estate consisted of, except that it did include the Forty-fourth Street home in Des Moines, which was in Mrs. Duro’s name at the time of her death. The Forty-fourth Street home was occupied by John Heber Duro at the time of his wife’s death and he lived there until his death in 1941.

In 1920 John Heber Duro’s sister Evelyn came from England to reside in the Duro home. She was about twenty years old at the time she arrived and she helped to supervise the home and daughter, Louise. She did not engage in any gainful occupation but she received her living expenses, clothing, *382 and spending money, and gifts as hereinafter set forth. When John Heber Duro died, on April 10, 1941, he left an instrument dated December 29, 1939, purporting to be his last will and testament, in which'the defendant was named as sole beneficiary and executrix. After the instrument was admitted to probate, and after a trial in the district court of Polk county, it was set aside on the ground that it was obtained by undue influence of defendant, and defendant was ordered to surrender all of the property of decedent in her hands or under her control to her successor. The case was appealed to the supreme court, where it was ’affirmed. See Shaw v. Duro, 234 Iowa 778, 14 N. W. 2d 241. While serving as executrix of the estate of John Heber Duro, defendant filed an inventory in the estate setting out and describing real estate and personal property of decedent in the amount of the approximate value of $76,000, which property was surrendered to her successor, Louise Duro Shaw. Thereafter Louise Duro Shaw instituted discovery proceedings, in which defendant was examined, for the discovery of assets under section 11925, Code, 1939 (635.14, Code, 1946). In the present action plaintiff, as administratrix and as sole heir of decedent, alleges that in addition to the property inventoried by defendant while serving as executrix, she is possessed of other property in excess of $300,000 belonging to the estate. We will hereafter refer to Louise Duro Shaw, as ad-ministratrix and as sole heir, as the plaintiff.

While we will discuss the pleadings and specific issues as to the property involved as we proceed, it seems necessary at the outset to state what appears to us to be the general theory of plaintiff’s case. In the various paragraphs of plaintiff’s petition she alleged the decedent had transferred shares of stock to defendant upon the books and records of certain corporations, and that he made, executed, and had recorded a deed to a farm purportedly conveying the farm to defendant. She alleged in effect that the transfers of the stock and the conveyance of the farm were without consideration, for convenience only, and procured by the domination and undue influence of defendant. In the prayer of her petition she asks: “* * * that the various transfers and conveyances aforesaid, by and through which the defendant holds or claims to hold legal *383 title to the real and personal property * * * be set aside; that the court decree that the defendant holds no part of said * * * property as absolute owner but only as trustee for the decedent and his heir.” In plaintiff’s “Statement of the Case” in her brief she states:

“The plaintiffs allege and claim in substance that the decedent, John Heber Duro, transferred said property into the name of the defendant as a matter of convenience only, that said transfers were merely colorable without consideration ahd were induced and procured by fraud, deceit and undue influence of the defendant. The plaintiffs ask the court to decree that said properties were and are in the name of the defendant impressed with a trust; that the defendant has no right, title or interest in said properties except that of a trustee * * * for the decedent and his heirs.”

From tifie foregoing we feel we are safe in assuming that plaintiff seeks recovery as to the property the decedent transferred to the defendant on the theory of a resulting or constructive trust. We are a little shaken in this belief because of the almost comxdete lack of discussion in plaintiff’s brief of any of the principles of law governing resulting or constructive trusts and the dearth of authority cited in support of recovery on the theory of a resulting or constructive trust. The briefs and arguments are long. We are told the case took thirteen weeks to try and the appeal was allowed on the transcript of testimony and exhibits, but in the three hundred pages (in plaintiff’s eleven hundred pages of brief and argument) which plaintiff devotes to a discussion of the principles of law involved we find no brief point iouching the law of resulting or constructive trusts.

In her brief plaintiff states that she relies upon the proposition that her ownership of all the properties here involved was established, so we wall assume she means, as to the property transferred by decedent to defendant, it was established on the theory of either a resulting or constructive trust.

I. Usually a resulting trust involves the situation where the party claiming that a trust resulted furnished the *384 consideration or purchase price, but the property was conveyed by the seller direct to another person, who is sought to be held as’ trustee for the benefit of the party supplying the consideration. Whether this type of resulting trust is involved in this case and is within the range of the pleadings is somewhat doubtful, but the parties seem to argue this type of resulting trust as to some of the property involved. The other general type of resulting trust, and one which is directly involved here, is where property is transferred without any consideration coming from the transferee and it appears from all the circumstances that he is holding the property for the benefit of the transferor. 65 C. J., Trusts, section 139; Acker v. Priest, 92 Iowa 610, 61 N. W. 235; Dunn v. Zwilling Bros., 94 Iowa 233, 62 N. W. 746; Williams v. Williams, 108 Iowa 91, 78 N. W. 792. The doctrine of resulting trust is operative whether the property involved is realty or personalty. 54 Am. Jur., Trusts, section 193.

II. The plaintiff has the burden of proving all facts necessary to establish a resulting trust. The proof necessary to establish such a trust must be clear, convincing, and satisfactory. See the review of many decisions of this court, by Justice Bliss, in Sinclair v. Allender, 238 Iowa 212, 26 N. W. 2d 320. In that case we held the rule had been phrased in various ways, but the rule first announced, by Chief Justice Wright, in Noel v. Noel, 1 (Clarke) Iowa 423, 425, still has vitality.

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Bluebook (online)
28 N.W.2d 816, 239 Iowa 377, 1947 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 426, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shaw-v-addison-iowa-1947.