Title: Williams v. Foerster
Citation: 335 So. 2d 810
Docket Number: 45949
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: July 21, 1976

335 So. 2d 810 (1976)
Estelle Jones WILLIAMS, Formerly Estelle Jones Foerster, Appellant,
v.
David Wendell FOERSTER, Appellee.
No. 45949.

Supreme Court of Florida.
July 21, 1976.
*811 William H. Maness, Jacksonville, for appellant.
William L. Durden of Kent, Sears, Durden &amp; Kent, Jacksonville, for appellee.
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.[1]
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.
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 *812 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:
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:
The provisions of Article X, Section 4, of the 1885 Constitution, which Justice Sebring 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.
*813 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.
ROBERTS, Justice (dissenting in part, concurring in part).
On May 28, 1965, appellee gave to his wife a deed whereby he purported to deed to the wife all right, title and interest in and to the homestead of the parties which was held as a tenancy by the entirety. The evidence clearly shows that the husband deeded the tenancy by the entirety owned by him and his wife to his wife to induce her to stay with him during a time when their domestic relationship was turbulent. Appellee, an attorney, aware of the requirements for conveyance of realty, expressly testified that he deeded the property to his wife to appease her and that he purposely did not put the second signature on the deed. Respondent was Chairman of the Eminent Domain Committee of The Florida Bar.
Relative to the circumstances surrounding the conveyance, appellant testified that her husband had given her the deed spontaneously to make her feel secure and to convince her that he was genuinely sorry that he could not control himself when he came home and physically roughed her up. Appellee never told appellant that the deed was defective although he admits purposely controlling the execution in such a manner as to cause the deed to be defective. In response to appellant's inquiry of him as to whether the deed should be recorded, he answered negatively telling her that only people not honest in business would do that.
In light of appellee's apparent misconduct in giving appellant a defective deed, I would find that he is now estopped from contesting the validity of the contract affecting the real property in question.
This Court in Cox v. LaPota, 76 So. 2d 662 (Fla. 1955), stated:
Pursuant to the principle of estoppel, I must agree with appellant's position that where taking advantage of superior legal knowledge (appellee's area of expertise was real property) and a confidential relationship, an attorney-husband gives his wife a deed which, unbeknownst to her, is purposely and designedly not in compliance with statutory requisites for conveyance of realty  want of an attesting witness  to deceive her and pretend atonement for many physical abuses, the contract of conveyance of the subject realty will be enforced.
Emphatically, I reiterate that which I previously elucidated in my dissent to Ryan v. Ryan, 277 So. 2d 266 (Fla. 1973), relative to the principle of "unclean hands," and which may most appropriately be applied sub judice:
Appellee effectually admits that he executed the deed in a knowingly defective manner as a trick to deceive his wife.
*815 The Second District Court of Appeal in Medina v. Orange County, 147 So. 2d 556 (Fla.App.2, 1962), explicated:
Cf. Alexander, et al. v. Colston, 66 So. 2d 673 (Fla. 1953).
Appellee is estopped from contesting the validity of the deed on the basis that it did not comply with Section 689.01, Florida Statutes.
I do, however, concur with the majority that this property as tenancy by entirety could properly be conveyed by husband to wife without the wife's joining in execution.
Accordingly, I dissent and would enforce the contract of conveyance.
ADKINS, J., and MASON, Circuit Court Judge, concur.
[1]  Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.