Taylor v. Talbert

NOURSE, P. J.

Plaintiff sued to quiet title to real property and had judgment.

While plaintiff and her husband, now deceased, were living together as husband and wife they acquired the property, most of the purchase price having been paid from the separate property of the wife, the balance from the community earnings of husband and wife. The husband had no separate property. Eight years later the wife was induced to participate in conveyances which transferred the entire property to husband and wife as joint tenants. They became estranged and the husband, a man of eighty-one years, was taken to the home of his daughter by a former marriage, the defendant herein. Immediately thereafter the husband conveyed by deed his entire interest in the property to the defendant and this deed was recorded. Four months later the husband died.

The cause was tried on the theory expressed in

Siberell

v.

Siberell,

64 Cal. App. Dec. 144 [295 Pac. 385], that in a transaction of this nature the wife took an undivided one-half interest as her separate property and the other one-half interest as community. Because of that decision the issue of fraud raised in the complaint was not tried. Since the entry of judgment the Supreme Court rejected the rule of the Siberell case and held that each spouse took an undivided one-half as separate property with all the incidents of joint tenancy, including the power to dissolve the

[597]

estate by deed.

(Siberell

v.

Siberell,

214 Cal. 767 [7 Pac. (2d) 1003];

Delanoy

v.

Delanoy,

216 Cal. 23 [13 Pac. (2d) 513];

Estate of Kessler,