Fontaine v. Lacassie

BEASLY, J.,

pro

tem.

Catherine Fontaine, one of the above-named plaintiffs, is the mother of the defendant Simeon Lacassie, and the latter’s codefendant is his wife, who owns a piece of land at Walnut Creek in Contra Costa County. In the month of December, 1914, Mrs. Fontaine, who was then unmarried, furnished to M'rs. Lacassie the sum of $439.50 with which to build a house on said property, as the trial court found, under an agreement between them that Catherine Fontaine might occupy the said house during her life, with the proviso that if the land was sold before her death by Mrs. Lacassie she would repay to her mother-in-law the money furnished by her for the building of the house. It is further found that Mrs. Lacassie was to attend to expending the money in erecting the house, and that she did so, paying the bills with the money so furnished by Mrs. Fontaine. The building was complete on January 1, 1915, and the plaintiffs occupied it thence until the month of December following, when the defendants ordered them off the premises with threatening and violent language and, as the evidence discloses, had Mrs. Fontaine arrested and removed from the property on a charge of insanity. She never returned to the house thereafter. The court also found that the object of the agreement to build the house was to furnish a home for Mrs. Fontaine. The defendants on this appeal insist that this finding has no support in the evidence, but the whole tenor of the testimony supports it; and it also specifically appears that when the money was advanced to Mrs. Lacassie by her mother-in-law the latter had become too infirm to work in the laundry where she had been employed, that the defendants were to charge her no rent, and were to furnish her with wood, water, and milk free of charge. From this—and indeed from the entire evidence—it may be fairly inferred that the agreement itself under which the

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money was

furnished was that Mrs. Fontaine should occupy the house as long as she should live, unless the property should in the meantime be sold. This evidence certainly supports the finding attacked.

The defendants also rely for a reversal upon a question of pleading, claiming that the facts above set forth will not support a judgment for “money had and received.”' The language of the pleading material to this question, to be exact, is as follows: “That . . . the defendant received the sum of $439.50 from the plaintiff for the use and benefit of plaintiff.” It is plain from these facts that the money was furnished by Mrs. Fontaine to Mrs. Lacassie to be used by the latter for Mrs. Fontaine’s benefit, namely, to -provide a home for her in her old age, and that she was within a comparatively short time after having furnished the money deprived of its benefit and use by being ejected from the house. The view of the trial court was that this evidence sustains the judgment. With this view we are constrained to agree.