126 Wash. 569 | Wash. | 1923
— The plaintiff brought this action to recover the sum of $1,000 which was the initial payment upon a contract for the purchase of certain real estate, the complaint alleging that a marketable title had not been tendered. The material allegations of the complaint were denied by the answer, and a cross-complaint was filed in which Ida G. Teachout sought a judgment for the $1,000, which was then in the possession of the other defendant, the Security State Bank of Richland, in escrow.- The trial resulted in a judgment denying the relief sought by the complaint and awarding to Mrs. Teachout a judgment for the $1,000. From this judgment, the plaintiff appeals.
The facts essential to be stated may be summarized as follows: On the first day of January, 1918, J. H. Brenneman and wife were the owners of a tract of land near Richland, in Benton county, and on this date contracted to sell the same to one C. S. Teachout. While this contract was in existence and before all the payments had been made which it provided for, Teach-out died. Thereafter Mrs. Teachout continued to make the payments as they became due. On April 12, 1921,
After this a further objection was interposed to the title and a suggestion was made that, in order to make it marketable, probate proceedings would be necessary. C. H. Teachout, the deceased, left a will by which, after making certain minor bequests of specific personal property, he bequeathed the residue of his estate to “Ida Gr. ’Teachout (his wife), and to my daughter Hazel to divide as they please.” The daughter, by quitclaim deed, conveyed all of her interest in the property here in controversy to her mother, the respondent. In order to meet the objection to the title, the will was probated in regular course, Mrs. Teachout
The action by the appellant was to recover the $1,000 which he had paid. The respondent resisted this and sought a judgment directing that it be paid over to her. If this money should be paid to the respondent under the judgment and the appellant should fail to meet the subsequent payments as they are called for in the contract, the question as to the relief that the respondent would be entitled to would then be presented. It is not necessarily involved in the case upon the present record. In any event, the facts are not in dispute, the evidence consisting largely of correspondence and stipulated facts, and the respondent was entitled to the relief which, under the facts, the law gave her, without making the election which the appellant sought to require.
The principal question in this case is whether the title to the property was made marketable, assuming
The appellant takes the position that this ninety-day period begins to run from the date when the contract was entered into. The respondent argues that the time does not begin to run until objections to the title are pointed out, and that the respondent had ninety days thereafter to make the title marketable. If the ninety days run from the date of the contract, the title was not made marketable under the probate proceedings within that time. If the time runs from the time the objections to the title were pointed out, the title was made marketable within ninety days by the completion of the probate proceedings awarding or setting over the property to the respondent and the tender of the deed by her. It is a cardinal rule with reference to the construction of contracts, in support of which authority need not be cited, that effect must be given to the intention of the parties making the contract. The question then is, Did the parties to the contract here in question intend the ninety-day limit to begin to run at the time the contract was executed, or at the time the objections were pointed out. It is also a rule for the construction of contracts that, where the language used
If the construction contended for by the appellant is given the contract, it would place it within his power to practically nullify the provision. If he should withhold his objections to the title until almost the expiration of the ninety-day period, then the respondent would have no opportunity to correct even ordinary or minor defects. The parties, by placing this term in the contract, undoubtedly intended that the time for the making of the title marketable should be ninety days from the time the objections were pointed out. This seems to us the only reasonable, just and practical construction of the terms of the contract as made, read in the light of the circumstances which surrounded its making and which are usually present in such contracts.
One further question remains, and that is whether the probate proceedings operated in vesting in the respondent a marketable title, assuming without deciding, that the other conveyances above referred to had not done so. The objections to the proceedings seem to us to be of minor importance. It is true that the petition for the probate of the will was verified by the attorney for the petitioner, who is the respondent here; the petition for the appointment of appraisers was likewise signed by the attorney; and the inventory and appraisement were signed and sworn to also by
“The authorities hold that to render a title marketable it is only necessary that it shall be free from*576 reasonable doubt, in other words, that a purchaser is not entitled to demand a title absolutely free from every possible technical suspicion, he can only demand such title as a reasonably well informed and intelligent purchaser acting upon business principles would be willing to accept. ’ ’
The title offered by the respondent as á result of the probate proceedings was one deducible of record and one which satisfies the rule just stated.
The judgment will be affirmed.
Pemberton, Parker, Fullerton, and Tolman, JJ., . concur.