Court Opinion

ID: 9644250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:51:09.869477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:09.761415
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing or Transfer to Court en Banc
PER. CURIAM.
There has been filed hereiñ on behalf of the claimants motions for rehearing or to transfer to Court en Banc.
As a. part of the amendment of May 28, 1940, of the trust agreement the trus-tors stated that each sold, transferred and conveyed her respective rights, titles and interests in the trust assets to “Helena L. Reicher and Rosa Reicher, as tenants *752by the entirety with right of survivor-ship.” On original submission, Helena having predeceased Rosa, claimants argued that Rosa became the 'owner of Helena’s property in the trust assets free from any effective limitation over to the trust beneficiaries, and that'said estate devolved upon the death of Rosa to claimants as her heirs at law. Construing said transfer in accord with the intent of the trustors, we stated the trustors changed “the estate in common theretofore existing in the trust assets to an estate by the entirety in the Trustors,” meaning thereby, as pointed out by claimants in the motions, an estate of “joint tenancy” rather than' “an estate by the entirety,” a- tenancy reserved for a husband and wife relationship.
Claimants now argue that the trustors, tenants in common, could not by a direct conveyance create in the trust assets a joint tenancy in themselves, it being essential at the common law that there be unity of time, title, interest and possession for a joint tenancy, and that the creation of a joint tenancy required a transfer by the tenants in common to a stranger and a reconveyance by him to them as joint tenants. Breitenbach v. Schoen, 183 Wis. 589, 198 N.W. 622, 623 [2]; Deslauriers v. Senesac, 331 Ill. 437, 163 N.E. 327, 329[6-8], 62 A.L.R. 511; Strout v. Burgess, 144 Me. 263, 68 A.2d 241, 12 A.L.R.2d 939; Stuehm v. Mikulski, 139 Neb. 374, 297 N.W. 595, 598[3], 137 A.L.R. 327; Stone v. Culver, 286 Mich. 263, 282 N.W. 142[1, 2], 119 A.L.R. 512. Claimants .say that Section 442.025 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., Laws Mo.1953, constitutes the first recognition of the right of an owner to act as grantor dnd grantee, in a conveyance of real estate in Missouri. Claimants’ cases involved personal as well as real property. The instant conveyance involved personal property held as part of a trust estate. We are referred to no Missouri case oh the issue and have discovered none. There is a 'division among the authorities. Claimants’ case of Breitenbach v. Schoen, supra, stands Overruled in Re Staver’s Estate, 218 Wis, 114, 260 N.W. 655, 659, and In re Skillings’s Estate, 218 Wis. 574, 260 N.W. 660, 662. In holding that the intention of the grantor or grantors overrides purely formalistic objections based on arbitrary distinctions and niceties of the feudal common law, some cases state the majority rulé is contra to- claimants’- position. See, among others, Greenwood v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 9 Cir., 134 F.2d 915, 921 [12]; and Switzer v. Pratt, 237 Iowa 788, 23 N.W.2d 837; 839, specifically disagreeing with the majority opinion in claimants’ Nebraska ca.se of Stuehm v. Mikulski, supra. Colson v. Baker, 42 Misc. 407, 87 N.Y.S. 238, 240, States there is no good reason, for insisting upon a conveyance to a “dummy” and a reconveyance to create a joint tenancy.
The real issue is the incident of the “right of survivorship,” and it appears that co-owners. should: have the right to agree among .themselves that the survivor .take the entire fee. Colson v. Baker, supra, citing Murphy v. Whitney, 140 N.Y. 541, 35 N.E. 930, 24 L.R.A. 123; Conlee v. Conlee, 222 Iowa 561, 269 N.W. 259, 262 [3]. The cases are reviewed in annotations appearing in 62 A.L.R. 514(III, IV) ; 137 A.L.R: 348; 166 A.L.R. 1026; 14 Am.Jur. 83, § 11, notes 5-7; , 26 Am.Jur. 700, § 72, notes 13, 14; 48 C.J.S., Joint Tenancy, § 3c, page 916, notes 71, 72, 75, 76; 41 C.J.S., Husband, and Wife, §§ 132, 134, 137b,, page 606. Consult Restatement of Trusts, §§ 17, 100, 114; 1 Scott, Trusts, pp. 538, 539, 587, 588. In the instant case the provision under discussion was subject to the .original, trust agreement and its amendments, and claimants are not aided as the trust instruments were nev,er terminated- or revoked.
We have especially reviewed the issue of the assessment of the costs. Claimants stress. Bernheimer v. First Nat. Bank of Kansas City, 359 Mo. 1119, 225 S.W.2d 745, 755; Lang v. Mississippi Valley Trust Co., 359 Mo. 688, 223 S.W.2d 404, 408; Kingston v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 348 Mo. 448, 154 S.W.2d 39, 43; and Lang v. Taussig, Mo.App., 194 S.W.2d 743, 748. These cases involved the -con*753struction and application of the provisions of the trust instruments, not their destruction. Plaintiffs as beneficiaries instituted the instant suit against the trustee for the distribution of the trust assets under the trust instruments and joined the other beneficiaries as defendants. The trustee interpleaded the claimants, who made no claim under the trust instruments but asserted claims based wholly upon the invalidity of the trust instruments. The authorities sustain our holding affirming the trial chancellor’s ruling.
The other issues are sufficiently covered in the opinion.
The motions of the claimants for rehearing or to transfer are overruled.