Court Opinion

ID: 9552955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:19:36.042223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:25.117626
License: Public Domain

LAVENDER, Justice,
dissenting:
The opinion of the majority deals a death blow to charity unwarranted by the facts before us, and contrary to law.
As a general rule, natural persons have the right to give away their property to whomsoever they wish; and if they do so and the gift is not induced by fraud or undue influence, only the creditors of the person who makes the gift may impeach it.1
In the absence of a statute to the contrary, a person of adequate mentality has the right to give away any part or all of his property if he wishes to do so.2
*334Neither sickness nor old age of themselves amount to incapacity to execute a deed or to make a gift.3
That the donor, Emery Dalrymple, was mentally competent to make the gift was not only established by convincing and undisputed evidence in the record, the very nature of conservancy proceedings instituted by him presupposes him legally competent.
Conservatorship over an individual’s property and affairs is a creature of statute and is embraced in 58 O.S.1971, § 890.1, et seq. The only statutory basis for appointment of a conservator is that the ward “is unable to manage his property” by reason of advanced age or physical disability.4 Mental incapacity or incompetency are not grounds for appointment of a conservator. This necessarily presupposes the prospective ward to be of sound mind. Otherwise, there would be no purpose to be served in enacting the statutes relating to conserva-torship, since the statutes governing guardianship would then apply. In addition, there is a presumption favoring sanity.5
Following a brief confinement in two hospitals, Emery Dalrymple was admitted to the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Amarillo, Texas. On October 2, 1975, he signed a petition alleging he was 64 years old, and “in view of my present hospitalization and present physical condition and being a single person I am unable to manage my property properly,” and petitioning the court to appoint his brother, Harold W. Dalrymple, one of the plaintiffs, conservator over all of his property. The petition was filed in district court on October 3, 1975, and on the same day, the district court granted the petition and appointed the brother as conservator. While Emery’s affairs were still under conservatorship, he deeded the lands and mineral interest here involved to plaintiffs, his siblings. The consideration for the deed was $10 and “the love and affection which I have and bear toward the grantees herein.” The deed was delivered to one of the grantees and four days after its execution it was duly recorded in the office of the county clerk of the county where the land was situated. Thereafter, Emery Dalrymple executed and filed both a federal and an Oklahoma gift tax return which included the gift by deed conveyance to plaintiffs.
In other words, all of the requisites for a valid gift inter vivos were present,6 and the gift having been completed, it stands on the same footing as an executed contract.7
On March 6, 1976, Emery made a will in which he left all of his property to his daughter, one of the defendants, and in which he named another defendant executrix of his will. Emery died on December 6, 1976, and on February 28,1978, the will was admitted to probate. Plaintiffs brought suit to quiet their title based upon the deed made by Emery to them.
Here we have the deliberate expression of the charitable disposition of a mature, mentally competent man in the giving by deed of conveyance of his land to his siblings, one of whom is his conservator, only to have his act of generosity, his right to give, posthumously frustrated by what seems to me to be a tortuous divination by the majority of a prohibition in § 890.10 of 58 O.S.1971 where none clearly exists.
Section 890.10 provides that upon the appointment of a conservator the ward shall not thereafter “have the power to enter into any contract creating an obligation against his estate except for necessities.” [Emphasis supplied.] There is no mention *335of prohibiting the making of a gift, and none should be implied. When the intent of the legislature is plainly expressed in a statute, it must be followed without further inquiry.8
Emery Dalrymple’s gift was in the form of a deed of conveyance given in consideration of love and affection. Although a deed may be a contract,9 an instrument of conveyance is a contract because and if it contains all of the attributes of a contract and not because it is a deed. A conveyance given without consideration other than love and affection is a deed, but it is also a gift.10 The intention of the legislature in enacting § 890.10 is manifest within the clear meaning of the language therein employed. Emery Dalrymple was rendered powerless to make a contract for the conveyance of his property by reason of the fact that his affairs were under a conserva-torship. That section did not render him powerless to convey it as a gift. Expressio unis es exclusio alterius.11
If one under a simple conservatorship is thus to be deprived of his right to give his property to those he wishes to have it, let the Legislature — not this court — provide such limitations.
Neither does § 496 of 58 O.S.1971 void the gift by deed to Harold Dalrymple who was both the conservator of Emery’s estate and one of the recipients of the deed of conveyance. For the same reasons, I would hold that since the instrument of conveyance was a gift, Harold was not a “purchaser” of the property nor was he “interested in any sale” thereof.
I have no difficulty in joining with the majority in holding that the relationship between a conservator and his ward is a fiduciary relationship based upon confidence and trust and that any gift from a ward to his conservator is presumed to be invalid and voidable, and that the burden rests heavily upon the conservator to prove all the circumstances of knowledge, free consent, good faith, absence of influence, which alone can overcome the presumption. But where I again part company with the majority is that in the case before us, in my opinion the evidence shows that Harold Dalrymple, the conservator, met that burden.
As for Emery Dalrymple, who presumably met his demise confident that he had disposed of his lands by gift to his siblings and the rest of his property to his daughter by his will, I can only say in the words of A. E. Housman:
Lie you easy, dream you light
And sleep you fast for aye;
And luckier may you find the night
Than ever you found the day.
I would affirm the judgment of the lower court.

. Brashears v. State, 194 Okl. 663, 154 P.2d 101 (1944).

. 38 Am.Jur.2d Gifts § 5; Amado v. Aguirre, 63 Ariz. 213, 161 P.2d 117, 160 A.L.R. 1126.

. Amado v. Aguirre, supra, 161 P.2d at page 119; McSpadden v. Mahoney, Okl., 431 P.2d 432 (1967). In Mahoney (at page 436) we held “that advanced age and reduced mental processes will not invalidate a gift where the donor is competent to understand the nature and effect of the transaction.”

. 58 O.S.1971, § 890.1.

. McSpadden v. Mahoney, supra, n. 3, at p. 436.

. Davis v. National Bank of Tulsa, Okl., 353 P.2d 482 (1960); Harmon et al. v. Kerns et al., 169 Okl. 290, 36 P.2d 898 (1934).

. Wilson v. Fackrell, 54 Idaho 515, 35 P.2d 409, 412 (1934).

.Estate of Kasishke v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, Okl., 541 P.2d 848 (1975); Johnson v. Ward, Okl., 541 P.2d 182 (1975). See also In re Assessment of Champlin Refining Co., 186 Okl. 625, 99 P.2d 880 (1940), and further stating (Syllabus 2 by the Court):
“The office of interpretation of a statute is not to put sense into the language used therein, but to ascertain the sense already existing there, and to go elsewhere to obtain something to enlarge or to limit its meaning is to endeavor to elude it.”

. Couch v. Addy, 35 Okl. 355, 129 P. 709 (1913); Key v. Key, Okl., 388 P.2d 505 (1983); United States v. 85.11 Acres of Land, More or Less, in Pawnee County, Oklahoma, 243 F.Supp. 423 (N.D.Okla.1965).

. 38 Am.Jur.2d Gifts § 31.

. In re Arbuckle Master Conservancy District, District Court, Murray County, No. 9660 v. Petitti, Okl., 474 P.2d 385 (1970); Meyers v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, Okl., 303 P.2d 443 (1956).