Opinion ID: 2631628
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Equitable Rescission Of The Heirs' Agreement Based On Their Mutual Mistake Of Fact Is An Issue Interposed For The First Time On Appeal

Text: ¶ 25 The wife's summary judgment brief urged the trial court to follow strictly the parties' family settlement agreement executed eight years earlier, by the terms of which the decedent's personalty was divided. Although the wife interposed the agreement in summary process to show her chain of title, the representative failed to counter by tendering to the trial judge the defense of equitable rescission based on mutual mistake of fact either in summary proceedings or by new trial motion. He now seeks to avoid the effect of that agreement by an argument interposed for the first time in appellate stages of the controversy. ¶ 26 The trial court never had an opportunity in this case to consider whether the representative is entitled to relief by rescission of the settlement contract. Matters not first presented to the trial court are generally excluded from consideration by an appellate forum. [29] Nothing tendered here warrants a deviation from the general rule that bars from review issues raised for the first time by appeal. We must hence accept the factum of an oral family agreement whose existence is undenied and whose validity stands unchallenged in all the trial court stages. [30] ¶ 27 We accordingly hold the Jernigan heirs' 1996 oral agreement to distribute all personalty in the decedent's estate has not been timely challenged in the trial court for mutual mistake of fact. The matrimonial donor was vested with sufficient indicia of ownership to transfer title by gift to the matrimonial donee who was without knowledge of any infirmity in his title. [31]