Durrell v. Bacon

STURTEVANT, J.

In an action to quiet title to four parcels of land the trial court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff as to three parcels, but held he owned only a life estate in parcel number one. From that judgment the plaintiff appealed.

He contends that the evidence does not sustain the findings. If the writer were sitting as trial judge and the plaintiff presented the same facts supported by the same authorities, the writer would be compelled to say that the case of the plaintiff was most plausible. But this court is a court of review and if there is evidence in the record giving substantial support to the findings under attack this court may not disturb those findings. Turning to the record we find that parcel number one included two lots and a part of a third lot in the Hardin tract in the city of Los Angeles. At the time of her death that parcel stood of record in the name of the plaintiff’s wife. The deed recites “To have and to hold all and singular the said premises ... as her sole and separate estate.” That deed was recorded December 8, 1898. The presumption is that the title to the property described in said deed then vested in the grantee as her separate property. (Civ. Code, see. 164.) After his wife died, the plaintiff applied for

[34]

letters testamentary. In his petition for letters the plaintiff alleged that his wife left property in Los Angeles 'County and that said property included the property which we have described above. In support of his case, the plaintiff introduced evidence that is quite convincing and which tended to prove that his wife took the title in her own name as an act of convenience only and that in truth and in fact the property was purchased with funds, some of which were the wife’s separate property, some of which were the husband’s separate property and some of which were community property and all of which were, by the contract of the spouses converted into community property. He called a number of disinterested witnesses who gave testimony corroborating that given by him. But, because of section 164 of the Civil Code, there was a substantial conflict in the evidence, the solution of which rested with the trial court and not a court of review.

(Smellie

v.