Olson v. Olson

CURTIS, J.

This is an action to impress a trust upon real property, and to recover possession of personal property. The real property consists of a dwelling house in San Francisco and the personal property consists of the furnishings in the dwelling.

The facts are somewhat unusual. The real property was acquired by Werner Olson and Hilda Olson as husband and wife in 1924, the purchase price being paid from the earnings of both of them, and the title being taken in their names as joint tenants. It appears from the record that the furnishings were likewise paid for from the joint earnings of both of

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them with the exception of a washing machine which it is claimed was a Christmas present from the husband to the wife. In May, 1929, Milda Olson, having saved up enough from her own earnings to make a trip to Sweden to visit her parents, made a deposit of some $400 with a steamship company but discovered upon making application at the Swedish consulate for a passport that because her husband had come from Canada and was not a naturalized American citizen that there might be considerable difficulty in procuring the passport and that, in fact, it might take so long that her deposit with the steamship company might be forfeited. Distressed by this turn of affairs she talked the situation over with a close friend who advised her to see a lawyer. This attorney, so Milda Olson testified, advised her to have the marriage annulled, which would leave her a Swedish subject, and would remove any obstacle to securing her passport, and upon her return from Sweden she could remarry. This ill-advised counsel was carried out, and on May 9, 1929, the complaint in annulment was filed, and the decree of annulment entered the following day. The grounds of annulment were that the ceremony had been performed by a person not properly authorized to perform such ceremony. Milda Olson left for Sweden on May 22, 1929, and remained there several months visiting her mother and friends and relatives. In July, so Milda Olson testified, she received a letter from Werner Olson stating that the encumbrances on the property would have to be renewed in September and that he would have to raise the money from some source to refinance the property, and asking her to sign a gift deed which he enclosed conveying to him outright her share of the real property held in joint tenancy by both of them, and assuring her that as soon as he had properly refinanced the property he would restore the title to its former status of joint tenancy between them. Milda Olson signed the gift deed and forwarded it to Werner Olson, who recorded it and made arrangements for the refinancing of the property. Upon her return from Sweden in October, 1929, they were not remarried, and on May 15, 1930, he died suddenly of pneumonia after an illness of less than a week, leaving no will, and with the real property standing of record in his name. Thereafter his mother, Mrs. Johanna Olson, as his sole heir at law, applied for and received letters of'administration. As such administratrix' she paid out in the payment of estate claims