Eells v. Eells

VICTOR E. SHAW, J.,

pro tem.

In this action plaintiff sought a decree quieting her alleged title to certain real property described in the complaint, and also asked that a deed which purported to convey the same property to defendant be canceled and annulled. The court denied her the relief sought and gave judgment in favor of defendant, from which, and an order denying her motion for a new trial, plaintiff appeals.

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The action grows out of the following facts: The parties are husband and wife. At the time of the marriage in 1909 defendant, the husband, owned nineteen and one-half acres of land upon which, at the request of plaintiff, he declared a homestead. He exchanged nine and one-half acres of this land for property in the city of Los Angeles, consisting of a house and lot constituting the subject of suit, which was owned by one Susan A. Hobbs, who on December 17, 1912, conveyed the same to plaintiff as her separate estate. On February 12, 1913, plaintiff signed and acknowledged a deed conveying to defendant this property so acquired from Hobbs. The chief question involved concerns the delivery or nondelivery of this deed of conveyance, wherein defendant was named grantee.

The contention of plaintiff, supported by her testimony, is that the deed was so executed by her, not with the intention of a present delivery thereof to her husband, but with the purpose, in case of her death, of saving her estate the expense of administration; and that he secured possession of the deed by wrongfully abstracting the same from where she had placed it between the mattresses of her bed. On the other hand, it was alleged in the answer, and testimony was offered in behalf of defendant which clearly tended to prove that he was inexperienced and unfamiliar with legal instruments and their effect, while plaintiff was an attorney of several years’ experience in the laws of conveyancing and familiar with matters relating thereto, and during her marriage had acted for defendant, in the conduct and management of all such matters; that at the time of the exchange of the properties she assumed charge thereof and stated to defendant that if the title to the Hobbs property was placed in her name, she could manage the same and collect the rents thereof to better advantage, and if so conveyed to her she would, for his protection, immediately execute and deliver to him a deed to the property; that defendant, relying upon his wife’s representations and having implicit confidence in her expressed purpose to convey the property to him, consented to the lodgment in her of the title to the Hobbs property; that in compliance with her agreement so to do she, on February 12, 1913, made and delivered the deed to him, at the same time advising that no record thereof be made until after her death; that thereafter she took the instrument