Case Name: Marcella SCHETTER, Appellant, v. C. B. SCHETTER and Ernest Tashea et al., Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1973-06-08
Citations: 279 So. 2d 58
Docket Number: No. 71-403
Parties: Marcella SCHETTER, Appellant, v. C. B. SCHETTER and Ernest Tashea et al., Appellees.
Judges: REED, C. J., and CROSS, J., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 279
Pages: 58–61

Head Matter:
Marcella SCHETTER, Appellant, v. C. B. SCHETTER and Ernest Tashea et al., Appellees.
No. 71-403.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
June 8, 1973.
Rehearing Denied July 2, 1973.
Donald I. Bierman and Joseph A. Barley, Miami, for appellant Marcella Schetter.
Thomas B. Duff and J. Carrington Gramling, Jr., of Duff, Brown & Gram-ling, Miami, for appellee C. B. Schetter.
Walter Urchisin, Deerfield Beach, for appellee Ernest R. Tashea.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
This is an appeal from a final judgment rendered by the Circuit Court for Broward County, Florida. The suit commenced with a complaint for divorce filed in 1966 by Mr. C. B. Schetter against his wife, Marcella. An amended complaint was filed which joined as additional defendants one Ernest R. Tashea and Mar-Ken, Inc., a Florida corporation, and sought a determination of the ownership of certain assets of which the plaintiff was allegedly divested by fraud or duress. Subsequently Marcella Schetter filed a separate action in the Broward County Circuit Court against Tashea and others to establish equitable title in Marcella Schetter to certain properties allegedly acquired from her by fraud. The two actions were consolidated in the trial court.
Testimony was taken over an extended period of time beginning in October 1969. Thereafter the trial court made extensive findings of fact which have been of immeasurable assistance to this court. The court found that each party to the marriage was entitled to an undivided one-half interest in all the property of either such party — regardless of the formalities of title, and that Mrs. Schetter was guilty of extreme cruelty and adultery.
The final decree awarded Mr. Schetter a divorce; gave Mr. Schetter a one-half interest in all assets theretofore titled either jointly with Mrs. Schetter or in her name alone; held that all conveyances by Marcella Schetter or Mar-Ken to Tashea should be taken as only conveying Mrs. Schetter's one-half interest and subjected such properties to an equitable lien in the favor of Mr. Schetter or in the alternative directed a reconveyance of the properties to Mr. Schetter; and held Marcella Schet-ter estopped from recovering property which she had placed in the hands of Tashea in order to defraud her husband. By virtue of the latter holding, the trial court left Marcella Schetter denuded of all of her properties which were then in the hands of Ernest Tashea.
The appellant, Marcella Schetter, has presented seven points for review by this court. In our opinion, only one point has merit and requires discussion. That is appellant's second point which asserts:
"THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN REFUSING TO SET ASIDE THE CONVEYANCES BY MARCELLA SCHETTER TO APPELLEE TASH-EA
This point arises out of the holding contained in paragraph "4" on page 20 of the final judgment. It reads:
"4. MARCELLA SCHETTER be, and she is, hereby estopped from recovering any property she has conveyed to ERNEST R. TASHEA. This shall particularly include the assets listed in the preceding paragraph. Being without clean hands, equity will leave her where it found her . . .".
The trial court cited in support of its holding three cases which stand for the general rule that a grantor of property is estopped to assert a claim to property which he conveyed for the purpose of hindering his creditors. In Maxwell v. Sullivan, 1936, 123 Fla. 263, 166 So. 575 and Hill v. Lummus, Fla.App.1960, 123 So.2d 365, the facts indicated that the grantee in favor of whom the estoppel worked was an innocent third party. In Spector v. Ahrenholz, Fla.App. 1958, 107 So.2d 34, the third case cited by the trial court, the District Court applied the rule, with the result that a grantor was not permitted to show that a deed which he had previously executed was intended as a security device rather than a deed absolute. The opinion in Spector v. Ahrenholz recognizes an important exception to the principle mentioned above. At page 36, the court said:
"We have examined those cases, and other authorities . . . recognizing the proposition that such a debtor-grant- or [a fraudulent conveyor] may recapture his property when the parties are not in pari delicto, as where the grantee obtained the conveyance by fraud or duress or by abuse of a confidential relationship."
In our opinion, the exception should have been applied in the present case.
The trial court found that Marcella was emotionally disturbed and subject to undue influence. The evidence indicates that Tashea had so much control over Marcella that he was able to induce her to completely repudiate recent in court testimony. The court found that Tashea was an opportunist without independent means, and had virtually nothing when he met Marcella, and that all property he obtained thereafter came from Marcella's property or from property jointly titled in Marcella and C. B. Schetter.
These facts which are recited in the Final Judgment suggest to us that the trial court should have considered Tashea not to have been in pari delicto with Mrs. Schet-ter, but to have been, as between the two, the more guilty party. Accordingly we reverse the holding in paragraph "4" on page 20 of the final judgment and, to the extent only that it depends on the holding in said paragraph 4, the holding of the court in paragraph 6 of the final judgment. In all other respects the final judgment is affirmed.
On remand the trial court should amend the final judgment, after taking such additional evidence as it may be advised, to allow appellant Marcella Schetter to recover all properties she caused to be conveyed to Tashea (or to any entity controlled by him) as a part of her scheme to divest her husband of any interest therein.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part, and remanded with instructions.
REED, C. J., and CROSS, J., concur.
WALDEN, J., dissents with opinion.