Speiss v. Speiss

183 N.W. 822, 149 Minn. 314, 1921 Minn. LEXIS 659
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJune 24, 1921
DocketNo. 22,282
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 183 N.W. 822 (Speiss v. Speiss) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Speiss v. Speiss, 183 N.W. 822, 149 Minn. 314, 1921 Minn. LEXIS 659 (Mich. 1921).

Opinion

Holt, J.

George J. Speiss died intestate in 1918. It appears that in September, 1881, plaintiff, then 14 years and 8 months old, was married to him. They lived together some six weeks, after which she, because of his failure to support her, was compelled to go to her brother, where in February, 1883, she gave birth to a child. The following June he brought suit to annul the marriage on the ground that she had fraudulently induced him to marry by falsely representing that she was pregnant by him. The action was tried in January, 1884, and terminated in her favor. The parties were never divorced. It cannot be controverted that plaintiff remained the lawful wife of Speiss until his death, and was his sole heir, their child having died before Speiss.

In November, 1883, Speiss was married to defendant, hereinafter designated by the name of Barbara. From that time on until his death these two parties cohabitated as husband and wife. When Speiss died he held the record title to a building on Lake street in Minneapolis, which was then his homestead, also to an 80-acre farm near Bobbins-dale. But it appears that Barbara, after his death, placed on record two deeds from him as grantor to her as grantee, conveying an undivided one-half interest to each of said premises. Plaintiff brought this action to cancel these two deeds, on the ground that they had been Obtained by undue influence and fraud, and to have the title to the whole of said real estate declared to be in her. Barbara answered, denying plaintiff’s title, and, as a counterclaim, alleging that the properties had been bought and paid for by her, and that Speiss, without her knowledge or consent, had fraudulently taken the title to himself; that by threats and cruelty he had coerced her into permitting the title to remain in him without consideration, and, during all their cohabitation, by threats and by false and fraudulent concealments compelled [316]*316her against her will and judgment to place her money and property in his possession, and that he had represented himself as a single man at the time she married him, she never knowing to the contrary. She asked that she be decreed the owner of the real estate and that plaintiff has no interest therein. The reply alleged that Speiss and Barbara had settled their property rights subsequent to 1915. The trial resulted in a judgment that plaintiff and Barbara each own an undivided one-half of said premises. Barbara alone appeals.

The findings are vigorously assailed as without support, as made upon issues not presented by the pleadings, and as warranting a different judgment from that ordered. The findings are somewhat exuberant. But it is plain to us that those most severely criticised as beside the issues and unsustained are the ones deemed necessary by the learned trial judge in order to grant Barbara the whole of the relief she did obtain.

The farm was bought for $10,000 in October, 1907; the full purchase •price was paid and the. deed delivered to George J. Speiss, as grantee, on November 11, 1907. The home was got in 1910, in a trade for a former home of the parties on Crystal Lake avenue, Minneapolis, $1,000 being paid in addition. The title to the former home was in George J. Speiss, and he also took title to the -one now in controversy. Assuming that Barbara’s money paid for all this real estate, the absolute title vested in Speiss under section 6706, G. S. 1913, which is: “When a grant for a valuable consideration is made to one person, and the consideration therefor is paid by another, no use or trust shall result in favor of the person by whom such payment is made; but the title shall vest in the person named as the alienee in such conveyance.” With the exception of the trust reserved to creditors of the one paying the money by section 6707, the title of the alienee is immune to attack, unless a resulting trust or trust ex maleficio may be declared under section 6708, G. S. 1913, reading: “Section 6706 shall not extend to cases where the alienee named in the conveyance has taken the same as an absolute conveyance in his own name, without the knowledge or consent of the person paying the consideration, or when such alienee, in violation of some trust, has purchased the lands so conveyed with moneys belonging to another person.”

[317]*317Barbara is, no doubt, excluded from predicating any title upon the claim that her money paid for the premises by said section 6706. This statute has often been considered and construed, the last case being Nelson v. Nelson, supra, page 285. And our conclusion is that two findings preclude her from asserting any rights to the property under said section 6708. The court found that she knew that the title was placed in Speiss when the deeds were made and acquiesced therein, and that she knew from the start that -her relations with Speiss were bigamous and unlawful. We think both findings are sustained. Ever since the parties, came to Minneapolis in 1900 or 1901, the bank accounts, with certain exceptions hereinafter noted, were in the name of Speiss, all mortgage loans, and they' were many, for he held over 12 unsatisfied mortgages when he died, were to him as mortgagee, 'and in the deed to every piece of real estate bought in this state by them, or either of them) he was named grantee.' In- an action brought by her for divorce in 1914, she alleged, in substance, that she knew that he banked and loaned the money in his name and took the title to the land purchased to himself. Of course she averred that her acquiescence was coerced and forced. There is no credible testimony to that effect. On the witness stand she simply denied that she knew that he had taken the deeds in his name.

Nor do we think that Barbara has shown that Speiss took the conveyances in his name in violation of some trust so as to come under the statute, for in this case such contention would have to be based largely upon the claim that he had fraudulently palmed himself off to her as a single man when she married him. In the cases of Dam v. Cummins (Mo.) 195 S. W. 752, ’and Shrader v. Shrader, 119 Miss. 526, 81 South. 227, cited by appellant, resulting or constructive trusts " were found under which a woman, who had unknowingly contracted a bigamous marriage, was awarded title to land bought with her money and deeded to the one who had deceived her into the marriage by falsely representing himself as single. In each case the court places the decision on the ground that the fraud practised/ in representing himself as single when he was not, and then, under the pretense of being her lawful husband, taking advantage of the opportunity to -handle her money and take the title, created a constructive trust or a trust ex maleficio. Such is not the ease here.

[318]*318We are satisfied of the correctness of the finding that Barbara knew that neither she nor Speiss could, lawfully marry when they went through the ceremony. From 1879, when Barbara married Balthasar Huber, until after 1884, she and some of her relatives lived and did business in the immediate neighborhood of where Speiss and his family, and plaintiff and her family resided in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They were all of the same nationality. When Speiss brought his action to annul his marriage to plaintiff, it evidently attracted attention on account of the charges made in the complaint against her father. Barbara admits reading of the trial in the German newspapers. The action was started over a year previous to the time Barbara and Speiss went through the marriage ceremony. She testified that she thought it was another Speiss.

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Bluebook (online)
183 N.W. 822, 149 Minn. 314, 1921 Minn. LEXIS 659, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/speiss-v-speiss-minn-1921.