Case Title: Wood v. Board of County Com'rs of Fremont County

Citation: 

Docket Number: 88-33

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1988-08-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
Wood v. Board of County Com'rs of Fremont County1988 WY 100759 P.2d 1250Case Number: 88-33Decided: 08/22/1988Supreme Court of Wyoming
CECIL S. WOOD AND EDNA M. WOOD, HUSBAND AND WIFE, 
APPELLANTS (PLAINTIFFS),

v.

BOARD OFCOUNTYCOMMISSIONERS OF FREMONTCOUNTY, STATE OF WYOMING APPELLEE 
(DEFENDANT).

Appeal from the District 
Court, FremontCounty, Elizabeth A. Kail, 
J.

David B. Hooper 
and Kenneth E. Spurrier of Hooper Law Associates, P.C., Riverton, for appellants.

Stuart R. Day of 
Williams, Porter, Day & Neville, P.C., Casper, for appellee.

Before BROWN, C.J., THOMAS, CARDINE and MACY, JJ., 
and ROONEY, J. Retired.

BROWN, Chief Justice.1

1 Chief Justice, Retired, 
June 30, 1988.

[¶1.]     Appellants Cecil and 
Edna Wood, husband and wife, appeal summary judgment favoring appellee, the 
Board of County Commissioners for Fremont County, Wyoming. By a 1948 warranty deed appellants 
conveyed land in Riverton, Wyoming, to Fremont County for the construction of a 
county hospital. They now contend that language in the deed created either a fee 
simple determinable or a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent with a 
right of reversion in them if the land ceased to be used for the hospital. They 
present three issues:

A. Whether the district 
court erred by granting appellee's motion for summary 
judgment.

B. Whether the district 
court erred by failing to grant appellant's motion for partial summary 
judgment.

C. Whether cessation of 
appellee's hospital operation by sale of public hospital facilities to a private 
company constituted the occurrence of an event which divested appellee of its 
estate in property conditionally conveyed by appellants.

The trial court 
found that appellants retained no interest in the land surrounding and under the 
old county hospital as a matter of law. We affirm.

[¶2.]     On September 1, 1948, 
by warranty deed, appellants conveyed

[a] tract of land 
situated in the SE 1/4 SW 1/4, Sec. 26, Township 1, North Range 4 East, W.R.M., 
Fremont County, Wyoming, described * * * as follows: Beginning at the Southwest 
corner of said SE 1/4 SW 1/4, Sec. 26, aforesaid, thence east along the South 
line of said Section 310 feet, thence North at right angles to said South line 
297 feet, thence West on a line parallel to said South line 310 feet, thence 
South 297 feet to the point of beginning, containing 2.1 acres * * *. Said tract 
is conveyed to Fremont County for the 
purpose of constructing and maintaining thereon a County Hospital in memorial to 
the gallant men of the Armed Forces of the United States of America from Fremont 
County, Wyoming * * *. (Emphasis added.)

This deed was 
recorded in the Fremont County Clerk's Office on December 14, 1948. Appellee 
constructed a hospital on the land and operated it there until November 18, 
1983. At that time appellee sold the land and the original hospital facility to 
a private company. The buyer operated a hospital on the premises until 
September, 1984, at which time it moved the operation to a newly constructed 
facility. The private company then put the premises up for 
sale.

[¶3.]     Appellants filed their 
complaint in this case on January 16, 1986, seeking recovery of the value of the 
land they conveyed to the county in 1948. Appellee answered, and after 
discovery, filed a motion for summary judgment on October 14, 1987. Appellants 
filed their own motion for partial summary judgment on December 11, 1987. The 
trial court heard the motions on December 15, 1987, and granted summary judgment 
favoring appellees on January 13, 1988. This appeal 
followed.

[¶4.]     The facts in this case 
are not in dispute and we review this order for summary judgment as a matter of 
law. Fitch v. Buffalo Federal Savings and Loan 
Association, 751 P.2d 1309, 1311 (Wyo. 1988). Appellants' argument boils down to 
whether or not the language "* * * for the purpose of constructing and 
maintaining thereon a County Hospital in memorial to the gallant men of the 
Armed Forces of the United States of America from Fremont County, Wyoming * * *" 
in the 1948 warranty deed is sufficient limiting language to create either 1) a 
fee simple determinable, or 2) a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent 
giving appellants title to the land. We review disputed language in a deed to 
determine the intent of the parties to it from the plain language in the deed 
considered as a whole. Samuel Mares Post No. 8, American Legion, Department of 
Wyoming v. Board of County Commissioners of the County of Converse, 697 P.2d 1040, 1043 (Wyo. 1985) (quoting Knadler v. Adams, 661 P.2d 1052, 1053 (Wyo. 
1983)). Also, W.S. 34-2-101 (1977) provides, in pertinent 
part:

[E]very conveyance of 
real estate shall pass all the estate of the grantor * * * unless the intent to 
pass a less estate shall expressly appear or be necessarily implied in the terms 
of the grant.

[¶5.]     A fee simple estate in 
land that automatically expires upon 
the happening of a stated event, not certain to occur, is a fee simple 
determinable. Restatement of Property § 44 at 121 (1936). In Williams v. Watt, 
668 P.2d 620, 627 (Wyo. 1983), we said:

The existence of an 
estate in fee simple determinable requires the presence of special limitations. 
Restatement of the Law of Property, § 44, p. 121. The term `special limitation' 
denotes that part of the language of a conveyance which causes the created 
interest automatically to expire upon the occurrence of the stated event. 
Restatement of the Law of Property, § 23, p. 55. An estate in fee simple 
determinable may be created so as to be defeasible upon the occurrence of an 
event which is not certain ever to occur. Restatement of the Law of Property, § 
44, p. 125.

Words such as 
"so long as," "until," or "during" are commonly used in a conveyance to denote 
the presence of this type of special limitation. Lacer v. NavajoCounty, 141 Ariz. 396, 687 P.2d 404, 408-409 (App. 1983). 
See also Restatement of Property § 44 at 128 (1936). The critical requirement is 
that the language of special limitation must clearly state the particular 
circumstances under which the fee simple estate conveyed might expire. See T. 
Bergin and P. Haskell, Preface to Estates in Land and Future Interests 48 (2d 
ed. 1984). Language of conveyance that grants a fee simple estate in land for a 
special purpose, without stating the special circumstances that could trigger 
expiration of the estate, is not sufficient to create a fee simple determinable. 
Lacer v. NavajoCounty, 687 P.2d  at 408 
(quoting Restatement of Property § 44 comment m at 129-130 (1936)). 

[¶6.]     The plain language in 
the 1948 deed, stating that appellants conveyed the land to Fremont County for 
the purpose of constructing a county hospital, does not clearly state that the 
estate conveyed will expire automatically if the land is not used for the stated 
purpose. As such, it does not evidence an intent of the grantors to convey a fee 
simple determinable, and we hold that no fee simple determinable was created 
when the land was conveyed.

[¶7.]     Use of the language 
conveying the land in "memorial" similarly fails to create a fee simple 
determinable. "Memorial" is defined in Webster's Third New International 
Dictionary 1409 (1971) as

[s]omething that serves 
to preserve memory or knowledge of an individual or event.

The time for 
which the hospital should serve to "preserve" the memory or knowledge is not 
stated in the deed, just as the time for maintaining the hospital is not there 
stated. The language of conveyance fails to designate the time at which the 
hospital must be constructed as well as the time during which it must be 
maintained or during which the indicated memory must be preserved. The omission 
of such limiting language evidences an intent not to convey a fee simple 
determinable.

[¶8.]     Similar reasoning 
applies to appellants' assertion that the language of conveyance created a fee 
simple subject to a condition subsequent. A fee simple subject to a condition 
subsequent is a fee simple estate in land that gives the grantor a discretionary power to terminate the 
grantee's estate after the happening of a stated event, not certain to occur. 
Restatement of Property § 45 at 133 (1936 & Supp. 1948). This type of 
interest is similar to the fee simple determinable in that the language of 
conveyance must clearly state the grantor's intent to create a discretionary 
power to terminate the estate he conveys. Lacer v. NavajoCounty, 687 P.2d  at 409 (quoting 
Restatement of Property § 45 comments i and j at 138-139 (1936 & Supp. 
1948). Words commonly used in a conveyance to denote the presence of a fee 
simple estate subject to a condition subsequent include "upon express condition 
that," "upon condition that," "provided that," or "if." Restatement of Property 
§ 45 comments j through o at 139-143 (1936). In J.M. Carey & Brother v. City 
of Casper, 66 Wyo. 437, 213 P.2d 263, 268 (1950), we quoted 
19 Am.Jur. Estates § 65 at 527 (1939), which said:

It is a well-settled rule 
that conditions tending to destroy estates, such as conditions subsequent, are 
not favored in law. They are strictly construed. Accordingly, no provision will 
be interpreted to create such a condition if the language will bear any other 
reasonable interpretation, or unless the language, used unequivocally, indicates 
an intention upon the part of the grantor or devisor to that effect and plainly 
admits of such construction. [Citations.]

[¶9.]     That rule has not lost 
its potency. Applying it to this case, we hold that the plain language of the 
1948 warranty deed, while articulating that the land conveyed was to be used for 
a county hospital, does not clearly state an intent of the grantors to retain a 
discretionary power to reenter the land if the land ceased to be used for the 
stated purpose. Appellants did not convey a fee simple subject to a condition 
subsequent, and we will not create one by construction some forty years after 
the conveyance took place.

[¶10.]  Summary judgment is 
affirmed.