Clapp v. Lorraine

FINCH, P. J.

The plaintiffs were given judgment, in accordance with the prayer of their complaint, quieting their title to the real property described in the complaint, subject only to a lien in favor of defendant Cynthia B. Clapp for support and maintenance during the remainder of her life and a mortgage lien in her favor securing the payment to her of the plaintiff’s promissory note. Robert M. Clapp and Randall C. Clapp, defendants and cross-complainants, have appealed from the judgment. The plaintiff Ralph B. Clapp, the cross-defendants Archibald W. Clapp and Albert

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A. Clapp and the appellants are the sons of Cynthia B. Clapp, who is a widow. The property in suit was purchased in the year 1897 with community funds of Cynthia B. Clapp and her husband, the father of the other parties named, and was conveyed to Mrs. Clapp, in whom the record title thereafter stood until February 23, 1923, at which time she conveyed the same to plaintiff Ralph B. Clapp. The husband died in the year 1911. In their answer the appellants alleged that “Cynthia B. Clapp acquired and held title in said real property in trust for her five sons, . . . under the agreement with their deceased father that the title thereto would vest in said sons, share and share alike, upon her death,” and that the conveyance from Cynthia B. Clapp to Ralph B. Clapp “was made with the verbal understanding and agreement between them” that the plaintiff “would hold the title thereto in trust for the benefit of said five sons, share and share alike.” In their cross-complaint appellants alleged that the property in suit was the community property of their parents at the time of their father’s death, and that they each succeeded to and now own an undivided one-fifteenth thereof and that their mother’s said conveyance of February 23, 1923, “was made upon the express understanding that the title to said property was being vested in Ralph B. Clapp, in trust for her support” and for her said five soils, “and that said Ralph B. Clapp would manage and control the same, and distribute the issues and profits thereof to said beneficiaries, and upon a sale of all or any part would distribute the proceeds to the beneficiaries.” Appellants also alleged that Cynthia B. Clapp was induced to make the conveyance of February 23, 1923, and they to consent thereto, by certain false representations made by plaintiff Ralph B. Clapp.