Willits v. Helmer

[310]

RICHARDS, J.

This action was instituted during the lifetime of one M. L. Willits, now deceased, through his guardian

ad litem

to have it determined that the defendants held certain real property which, it was alleged, had been purchased with funds belonging to the plaintiff, to have a trust thereon declared in his favor, and to also obtain an accounting for certain other moneys and property alleged to have been received by certain of the defendants from said plaintiff under the circumstances set forth at length in the complaint.

' Shortly after the institution of the action M. L. Willits died, and the suit was continued in the name of the administrator of his estate.

Upon the trial of the cause the court made its findings and conclusions of law in the plaintiff’s favor, and judgment was accordingly rendered establishing such trust and directing such accounting. The defendant Bertha Helmer appeals.

The facts of the case briefly stated are these: The defendant Emma L. Helmer, daughter of the appellant herein, became acquainted with said M. L. Willits during the year 1911 at Clinton, Iowa, and in the month of November of that year the said M. L. Willits came with the Helmer family to San Diego, California, and thereafter was an inmate of the family up to a short while before his death. Willits at the time of his arrival in California was well along in years and had considerable means in the form of money and also in the form of a valuable piece of property in Illinois, a portion of which latter property he sold in the year 1912 for the sum of fourteen thousand dollars, and the remainder of which he conveyed to the defendant Emma L. Helmer by a deed executed in April, 1914, but which was not recorded until after his death. It is alleged in the complaint, and found by the court, that between the date of the arrival of said M. L. Willits in California and the latter part of the year 1914, the said Emma L. Helmer obtained from him sums of money at various times aggregating in all about twenty thousand dollars, and that she also obtained from him the deed to the farm in Illinois, through undue influence and while he was of unsound mind. It is also alleged in the complaint and found by the trial court, that a large part of the money thus obtained from him was invested