Alger v. Aston

MUSSELL, Acting P. J. This is an appeal from a judgment quieting title in plaintiff to real property in Indio, Riverside County. The complaint was filed October 11, 1954. Defendant Nida lone Aston filed an answer denying that Dean E. Alger, deceased, was the owner of the property involved at the time of his death, and a cross-complaint in which she sought to quiet her title to said property. Ava Bell Reese filed a disclaimer of interest in the quiet title action and it was dismissed as to all fictitious defendants.

On June 30, 1955, defendant'Nida Aston filed a petition for determination of heirship in the matter of the estate of Dean E. Alger, deceased, being action Number 15272 in the Superior Court of Riverside County. In this petition said [86]defendant alleged that she was the surviving spouse of said decedent and one of his heirs at law. This matter and the quiet title action were consolidated for trial. Following the trial, a decree was entered in the proceedings to determine heirship and it was adjudged therein that the defendant Nida Aston was not the surviving spouse of said decedent and was not one of his heirs at law. No appeal was taken from this decree. Defendant Nida Aston appeals from the judgment in favor of plaintiff in the quiet title action, claiming that the evidence is insufficient to support the judgment.

Plaintiff Elsie Mertzmann Alger and the decedent, Dean E. Alger, were married for approximately 30 years. In 1944, while they were living together in Long Beach, the decedent sold his plumbing business for $6,000 and moved to Indio, where, on October 29, 1945, he purchased the property here involved in his own name, as a married man, and obtained a grant deed therefor.

In April of 1948 plaintiff Elsie Alger started divorce proceedings and obtained a final decree of divorce in December, 1949. In the interlocutory decree, dated November 17, 1948, pursuant to stipulation of the parties, the property involved was awarded to Dean E. Alger as his sole and separate property. He improved the premises by erecting thereon a plumbing shop and living quarters and was living on the premises in 1948. At that time appellant Nida Aston was living in a trailer parked on the premises.

On December 21, 1948, Dean Alger and Nida Aston were introduced to Grant Weaver, a notary public, in his office in Indio, and Dean Alger there executed a grant deed conveying the property involved to Nida I. Aston, an unmarried woman. This deed was acknowledged by Weaver and was recorded February 18, 1949. On December 22, 1948, Alger and appellant returned to Weaver’s office and appellant there signed and acknowledged a deed granting the property involved to Dean E. Alger, an unmarried man. This deed was recorded on January 6, 1953, at the request of Mrs. B. L. MeDanel, the daughter of Dean Alger and his wife, Elsie. The decree of the trial court quieting title and adjudging that Dean Alger, deceased, was the owner at the time of his death, on or about January 5, 1953, and had the right to possess the property involved was based on this deed and its execution and delivery are disputed by the appellant. She testified that the deed was executed on the date it bears; that on December 23, 1952, she took the deed out of her filing case and decedent Alger then