57 Fla. 480 | Fla. | 1909
Lead Opinion
On the 23rd day of July, 1908, the appellant as complainant filed his bill in chancery in the Circuit Court for Hernando County against the appellees as defendants, which, omitting the purely formal parts, is as follows :
“George B. Murrell, of Polk county, in the said State, the complainant, brings this his bill against William R. Peterson, of said Hernando county, and the Peterson-McNeill Company, a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Florida, with a principal place of business in Hernando county, in the said 'State, and thereupon the complainant complains and says: That the complainant and the defendant, William R. Peterson, upon parol agreement between them bought in equal interests the east half of the northeast quarter of section twenty-two (22), the northwest quarter and the west half of the southeast quarter and the southwest quarter of section twenty-three (23), and the west half of the northeast quarter and the northwest quarter of section twenty-six (26), of township twenty-three (23), south of range twenty (20), in the said Hernando county 'situate, and containing seven hundred and twenty (720) acres, more or less, upon said agreement, and in mutual trust and confidence, and for reasons of personal convenience to them as. tenants in common understood and agreed upon between them, caused the title-deed therefor to be executed to and in the name of the said defendant, William R. Peterson, as appears by the said title-deed executed by R. H. Moore and his wife and John L. Culver and his wife the twenty-fourth day of April, anno* domini nineteen hundred and three, appearing of record in Hernando county aforesaid at page 631 in Book 14 from the thirteenth day of July, 1903, the complainant and the said defendant, William (R. Peterson, each
Complainant further shows that the said defendant. William R. Peterson, disregarding the agreement aforesaid, co-operated in forming a corporate company the eighth day of February, A. D. 1905, under the name Peterson-MeNeill Company for lumber and turpentine purposes, with the said William R. Peterson as the president and one E. H. McNeill as the vice-president thereof, conveyed the said lands by his warranty deed to the said Peterson-MeNeill Company the tenth day of the said February,- and the said company with full knowledge of the said agreements and of the rights and equities of the said several parties thereto, and especially of your orator’s said rights and equities thereto, and of the said suit at law and recovery against complainant, in violation of the said rights and equities has continued to withhold the conveyance of the said half-interest, but complainant is informed and believes — and therefore alleges — has sold and by warranty deed, conveyed unto certain strangers certain parcels of the said lands, to the profit of the said company and to the wrong and damage of this complainant — all which complainant submits is contary to and is to the injury of the complainant.
To the end, therefore, that the defendants may, if they can, show why the complainant should not have relief thereby prayed, and may full, true, direct and perfect answers make, according to the best and utmost of their knowledge, remembrance, information and belief— answer under oath being hereby expressly waived — to all and singular the matters and things herein alleged, and may be compelled to repay to complainant all damage by him sustained by reason of the said suit and judgment
To this bill each of the defendants interposed a demurrer upon various grounds, but we deem it unnecessary to set them forth; On the 24th day of September, 1908, the court made the following order:
“This cause came on to be heard on argument of the defendants’ demurrer to the bill of complaint, and the same was argued by the solicitors for the respective parties, and the court having considered the same, is of the opinion that the allegations in the bill of the payment of one-half of the purchase price for the lands mentioned coupled with the agreement that the complainant was to have certain turpentine privileges and the defendant certain-timber privileges does not state a case of a resulting trust, and the demurrer is sustained. The complainant is allowed ten days to amend his bill and if no amendment is made within the said time the bill will stand dismissed.”
From this order the complainant has entered his appeal to this court.
Right at the threshold of our investigation of the points presented by this appeal we are confronted by certain legal principles which have been so repeatedly enunciated by this court that they must now be regarded as settled beyond question. One is that in a suit in equity,
Applying these principles, it seems to us that the bill is defective in .several respects. , In the first place, it affirmatively appears that the complainant had “sold out and assigned” his turpentine business, on the 13th day
We note and call attention to the point that the agreement made between complainant and defendant Peterson is expressly alleged in the bill to have been a “parol agreement,” and presumably the agreement alleged to have been made between complainant and such defendant, whereby the latter was to recognize complainant’s vendees and to convey the undivided one-half interest in such lands to them, was likewise parol. Interesting questions-are here presented, but we pass them by, it not being necessary to discuss or decide them. One other point we-wish to note in passing. It strikes us as being significant that, although the lands in question were purchased by-complainant and such defendant in April, 1903, “uponparol agreement between them,” by which the title-thereto was taken in the name of such defendant, and although it was agreed between them- that “complainant should first enter and take possession of said lands for the use of the pine timber thereon in the prosecution of complainant’s turpentine business,” the complainant
'Counsel for complainant lay such stress upon the question of a resulting trust and insist upon a reversal of the interlocutory order appealed from because the court in the order sustaining the demurrers seems to plant such ruling upon the ground that the bill “does not state a case of a resulting trust.” We really fail to see wherein this question seriously enters into the case. If the demurrer should have been sustained upon any of the grounds thereof, it is wholly immaterial that the court may have given a wrong reason for a proper ruling. See Hoopes v. Crane, 56 Fla. 395, 47 South. Rep. 992, and authorities there cited; Steiner v. Parker, 108 Ala. 357, 19 South. Rep. 386; McDonald v. Pearson, 114 Ala. 630, 21 South. Rep. 534; Lamar & Rankin Drug Co. v. Jones, Ala. , 46 South. Rep. 763. As to the principles applicable to a resulting trust we would again refer to Geter v. Simmons, supra.
We now take up for consideration the question of multifariousness, which formed one of the grounds of the demurrers. In so doing, we fully recognize that this is a vexed question indeed and has given the different courts no end of trouble. We quote the following paragraph from the opinion of Mr. Justice Peckham in
According to the allegations of the bill, the defendant Peterson, with whom complainant had purchased the lands in question and entered into the parol agreement concerning the same, had conveyed all of such lands to the Peterson-McNeill Company, a corporation, and the other defendant. Assuming the allegation in the bill as true that such company took the deed -to the lands in question with full knowledge of the “agreements” referred to in the bill “and of the rights and equities of the said several parties,” especially the rights and equities of com
A number of questions present themselves here, but we shall not undertake to set forth and discuss them all. Suffice it to say we fail to find any allegations in the bill upon which the defendant corporation could be required to repay complainant all damages- sustained by him by reason of the recovery against him of a judgment at law, or why such defendant should be required to account to him at all as prayed. We also fail to find any sufficient allegations to entitle complainant to a partition of the lands. Since defendant, Pieterson,,. had long since conveyed all of said lands to the defendant corporation, we do not see how a suit for a partition thereof would lie against him at all or how he could be a proper party to such suit. It has been held in some jurisdictions, and,’ we think, properly so, that there are at least two general and distinct forms of multifariousness. One consists in uniting in the same bill distinct and disconnected subjects, matters or causes. The other consists in joining in the same suit,
It may be advisable to say a few words as to the legal principles governing the partition of lands. We have held in Williams v. City of St. Petersburg, decided here at the present term, that, “in order to maintain a bill for partition, the complainants must show title or a right to partition. Where in a partition proceeding it appears that the complainants have no title to the lands sought to be partitioned, the bill should be dismissed, even though the complainants may have an equitable interest in the lands which may be enforced in proper proceedings.” Also see Dallam v. Sanchez, 56 Fla. 779, 47 South. Rep. 871, and authorities there cited, and Koon v. Koon, 55 Fla. 834, 46 South. Rep. 633, and authorities there cited. We are clear that the bill was well open to attack by demurrer, therefore, the order sustaining the same must be affirmed, and it is so ordered.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring. — I am content to affirm the order upon the ground stated by the Circuit Judge. The earnest, if not the sole, insistence of the appellant is that the bill makes out a proper case of a resulting trust. This equity, it seems to me, is destroyed by the inconsistent agreement set up.
While the cases decide that an invalid oral agreement will not destroy the right to a resulting trust, yet that agreement should' not be wholly inconsistent with the implications the law creates from the acts of the parties.
The statute of frauds strikes down the oral agreement and to declare a resulting trust, an exact equality of division of interests in the lands purchased, would be to do what neither party contracted for and what under the circumstances would be inequitable to force upon either.
There remains but an ordinary case of breach of contract, for which the courts of law are open.