Case Name: Estelle Jones WILLIAMS, formerly Estelle Jones Foerster, Appellant, v. David Wendell FOERSTER, Appellee
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1976-07-21
Citations: 335 So. 2d 810
Docket Number: No. 45949
Parties: Estelle Jones WILLIAMS, formerly Estelle Jones Foerster, Appellant, v. David Wendell FOERSTER, Appellee.
Judges: BOYD, ENGLAND and DREW (Retired), JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 335
Pages: 810–815

Head Matter:
Estelle Jones WILLIAMS, formerly Estelle Jones Foerster, Appellant, v. David Wendell FOERSTER, Appellee.
No. 45949.
Supreme Court of Florida.
July 21, 1976.
William H. Maness, Jacksonville, for appellant*
William L. Durden of Kent, Sears, Dur-den & Kent, Jacksonville, for appellee.

Opinion:
OVERTON, Chief Justice.
This is an appeal from a decision of the First District Court of Appeal reported at 300 So.2d 33 (Fla.App. 1st 1974), which declared part of Section 689.11(1), (2), Florida Statutes (1975), unconstitutional. We have jurisdiction.
The parties were husband and wife and the real property inter-spousal conveyance issue in this cause results from their domestic relations dispute. The property was the home of the parties and was held as a tenancy by the entirety. In 1965 during a marital dispute the appellee husband executed a deed conveying the home property to the appellant wife. The deed was witnessed by one person. The wife neither joined in the conveyance nor recorded the deed, placing it instead in the hands of a priest. . .WJ.
The appellant wife contends that the deed executed by the appellee husband in her favor did, as a matter of law, operate to convey to her the family residence. The appellee husband asserts that the deed was made prior to an initial separation of the parties for a one-year period, after which they were reconciled and lived together in the home for approximately one year. He testified that he had assumed the deed had been destroyed and that he gave it to his wife solely to appease her during the earlier period of marital unrest.
The trial court held that the deed executed by the husband purporting to convey to the wife the family home was ineffective.
The wife appealed to the First District Court of Appeal contending the deed was valid even if she did not join her husband in its execution by the operation of Section 689.11(1), (2), Florida Statutes. The District Court held this act unconstitutional, stating as follows:
"While the 1971 Act does do away with the necessity of joinder of the other spouse where a homestead is involved, that legislative enactment is not worth the proverbial plugged nickel in light of Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution of 1968, F.S.A., as amended in 1972, as contended by appellee. That constitutional provision reads in material part:
"'(c) The homestead shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by spouse or minor child, except the homestead may be devised to the owner's spouse if there be no minor child. The owner of homestead real estate, joined by the spouse if married, may alienate the homestead by mortgage, sale or gift and, if married, may by deed transfer the title to an estate by the entirety with the spouse. . . '
"The provisions of Article X, Section 4 of the 1885 Constitution, which were in effect at the time the deed in question was executed likewise required joinder of both spouses for the alienation of a homestead." 300 So.2d at 35.
We agree with the finding of the trial judge, but disagree with the constitutional holding of the District Court. There is a distinction between inter-spousal alienability of solely owned homestead property and inter-spousal alienability of an estate by the entireties occupied as the home of the parties. This distinction was clearly established by Mr. Justice Sebring in Denham v. Sexton, 48 So.2d 416, 418 (Fla.1950), where he said the following:
". . . [T]he title to the property was held as an estate by the entireties. As respects property so held, it becomes upon the death of one spouse the sole property of the remaining spouse to the exclusion of the heirs of the decedent, even though occupied during the lifetime of both parties as a homestead. See Menendez v. Rodriguez, 106 Fla. 214, 143 So. 223; Knapp v. Fredericksen, 148 Fla. 311, 4 So.2d 251. The homestead provisions of the Constitution adopted for the benefit of heirs of the head of a family to take effect upon his demise do not apply to such property and it may be disposed of by tenants by the entireties as may any other property not exclusively owned by the head of a family and occupied by him as a homestead. . . ."
The provisions of Article X, Section 4, of the 1885 Constitution, which Justice Seb-ring was construing, were in effect at the time the deed was made in the instant case. The same basic requirements are in our present constitutional provision. All the cases cited in the District Court opinion concern homestead property owned solely by the head of the household.
We agree with the appellant that the District Court erred in holding Section 689.11, Florida Statutes, unconstitutional. The record, however, does support the finding of the trial judge that the deed was ineffectual, it being uncontroverted that the deed was signed by only one witness in contravention of Section 689.01, Florida Statutes (1975), together with evidence that the husband had no actual intention to effectively convey the property to his wife. The decision of the trial judge, who heard and evaluated the testimony in evidence in this cause and entered an extensive order concerning the property interests of the parties, is supported by the record.
The decision of the First District Court of Appeal, affirming the trial court, is approved, but its opinion holding Section 689.-11(1), (2), Florida Statutes (1975), unconstitutional, is vacated.
It is so ordered.
BOYD, ENGLAND and DREW (Retired), JJ., concur.
ROBERTS, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion.
ADKINS, J., and MASON, Circuit Court Judge, dissent and concur with ROBERTS, J.
. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla.Const.