Singleton v. Singleton

525 S.W.2d 642, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 1743
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 2, 1975
DocketNo. KCD 26511
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 525 S.W.2d 642 (Singleton v. Singleton) 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
Singleton v. Singleton, 525 S.W.2d 642, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 1743 (Mo. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

DIXON, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment in a suit for a divorce and an action for partition and other equitable relief relating to real and personal property. The judgment was for plaintiff, and plaintiff appeals, contending only that the trial court erred in the determination of plaintiff’s rights in certain property. The defendant has not filed a cross appeal, and the issue of the granting of the divorce is no longer in the case.

The appeal is of extraordinary complexity. To illustrate this complexity, the transcript contains 1,416 pages, and 131 exhibits were offered, most of which were composites of the financial transactions of the parties over a period of five years. The amended petition upon which the ease was tried consists of VI counts on twenty transcript pages, and the decree that is challenged covers fifteen transcript pages. What has been stated demonstrates that no opinion in ordinary format can frame and resolve the issues presented. It has become necessary to adopt a format that will make more intelligible the necessarily long opinion.

A brief explanation of the marital history and resume of the various properties involved will serve to explain the various divisions into which the subsequent opinion is divided.

The plaintiff and defendant were married November 1, 1965. The plaintiff, Una 0. Singleton, was 53 years of age and was a widow. She had inherited substantial properties from her first husband who had died some five years prior to the 1965 marriage to the defendant. She had three children by her first husband, two daughters and a son. One of the daughters and the son had attained majority at the time of the 1965 marriage, and the remaining daughter was in her late teens. The defendant, Donald L. Singleton, was 32 years of age in 1965 at the time of the marriage. He was then a part owner of an Oldsmobile sales agency.

For five years after this marriage ensued the most bizarre financial transactions imaginable. Among these are adventures in the stock market, repetitive trading of motor vehicles, sale of the substantial interest of plaintiff in the savings and loan association her husband had left her for cash and a work contract, purchase of two boats, sale of securities, pledge of the childrens’ savings accounts, investments in a nebulous enterprise “to purchase life insurance stocks,” purchase of real estate development stock, purchase of the Mizzou Motel, and, finally, the building of an ornate residence in Columbia, Missouri.

It is clear that each owned separate property at the time of the marriage. It is, likewise, clear that at the time of separation some of the property was jointly held and some of the properties had remained the sole property of the wife and that the husband had acquired property in his own name which he did not own at the time of the marriage.

All of this tangled web of marital finance related above is unaided by any semblance of professional accounting and further confusion is engendered by the inevitable battle for the records following the separation of the parties.

This web of financial woe is overlaid with the usual story of marital discord. From a too early intimacy, the relationship of plaintiff and defendant progressed from an “ideal relationship” to utter matrimonial disaster in five years. Chief among the complaints of the defendant as to the cause of marital discord was the plaintiff’s claimed indifference to sex. Plaintiff counters with the assertion defendant drank to excess, and his claim of physical abuse by her is by her account justified by his drunkenness. Ultimately, the evidence discloses that whatever the plaintiff’s later indifferent attitude towards sex may have been, the defendant did not suffer any deprivation. Long prior to any such complaint on his part, the evidence disclosed a variety of sexual dalliance by him. On his own admission, reluctantly made on cross examination, he admitted to sexual improprieties [644]*644with five separate females, many of which occurred prior to any other claim by him of marital discord occasioned by plaintiff’s actions. So also, plaintiff, by undisputed evidence, showed innumerable instances of his having girls delivered by a handyman to him at the Mizzou Motel. They would be esconced in “Room 15” and thence would be dispatched a “bottle” by the handyman. The inference from this conduct, coupled with the admissions of the defendant, makes these occasions highly suspect as occasions of infidelity.

Condensing plaintiff’s claims stated under seven points in the brief to their essential thrust, they may be paraphrased as follows.

Plaintiff claims that she did not receive adequate overall equitable relief because the overwhelming weight of the evidence was for plaintiff, and defendant’s credibility was destroyed. She further asserts that the existence of a fiduciary relationship made the granting of further equitable relief mandatory.

Specifically, plaintiff claims the decree denies her the following relief:

1) A constructive trust or equitable lien on property she contributed to the marriage, either directly or which was purchased from funds she contributed. Without waiving claims to other assets, plaintiff claims equitable ownership of all of the “Mizzou Motel” and the jointly owned dwelling house constructed by the parties.

2) Attorney fees and alimony.

Defendant counters by asserting that no resulting or constructive trust can arise since the properties in question were jointly owned and purchased from funds flowing through a joint bank account; further, that the evidence does not establish or prove any fraud or overall scheme, and the plaintiff has not factually supported her claim to alimony and attorney fees.

The primal issue, therefore, is the determination of the plaintiff’s right to broad equitable relief. It must be concluded upon the entire record that such relief, should have been afforded to the plaintiff.

The fundamental basis for the finding that the plaintiff is entitled to broad equitable relief is the determination by this court that this record demonstrates a fixed design and scheme by the defendant to accomplish the transfer of what was the plaintiff’s separate estate to either jointly owned properties or his own individual name.

As plaintiff has asserted, this case is heard de novo on the whole record, and it is this court’s obligation to determine the weight of the evidence and render its own judgment on that review of the facts. Bates v. Morris, 467 S.W.2d 286 (Mo.App.1971); Rutherford v. Rutherford, 444 S.W.2d 439 (Mo.1969); Franke v. Franke, 447 S.W.2d 308 (Mo.1969). The defendant does not challenge that obligation of this court. From the voluminous transcript and numerous exhibits, the following facts can be found.

Essential to an understanding of these factual findings is the status of the positions of the parties at the two critical periods at or near the time of marriage and at the time of separation. The plaintiff testified in detail as to the assets in her name prior to the marriage, including her estimate of value. The defendant produced an exhibit which likewise purported to list and value the assets of the plaintiff.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Searles v. Searles
420 N.W.2d 581 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1988)
Berry v. Berry
620 S.W.2d 456 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1981)
Vaughan v. Singleton
584 S.W.2d 186 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1979)
In Re the Marriage of Strelow
581 S.W.2d 426 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1979)
In Re Marriage of Burris
557 S.W.2d 917 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1977)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
525 S.W.2d 642, 1975 Mo. App. LEXIS 1743, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/singleton-v-singleton-moctapp-1975.