Court Opinion

ID: 7815774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:35:43.044529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:35.808630
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Associate Justice, concurring. I concur in the result reached by the majority in this case, as it is my view that the 1941 deed from Meyer to Duncan Hill and Emma Hill vested in the grantees an estate by the entirety. Hill executed a warranty deed to Meyer in 1936. So far as the world knew, from an examination of the record, the legal title to the property was thereby placed in Meyer. A heavy burden would have been on Hill to prove that the absolute deed in 1936 was, in fact, a mortgage. Hill had a right to make such effort; or he had the right to affirm the 1936 deed to Meyer as an absolute conveyance and then seek a re-conveyance. Hill and his wife elected to take the latter course and sought a re-conveyance. The proof is abundant — more than sufficient — to show that Hill affirmed the 1936 conveyance to Meyer as an absolute deed and sought and obtained a re-conveyance to himself and his wife as tenants by the entirety. This case is far different from a mere release deed of a mortgage. In that situation, there was originally only a conveyance with an express defeasance; and the release deed shows the satisfaction of the defeasance and thereby cancels the conveyance. A mere release deed by a mortgagee would not create an estate by the entirety where none had existed before, even if the mortgagor’s wife’s name appeared in the release deed. The situation here is vastly different. There was an absolute conveyance to Meyer in 1936; and Hill, instead of having that absolute conveyance declared a mortgage, sought and obtained a re-conveyance to Hill and wife in 1941, and that re-conveyance, under the facts here, created an estate by the entirety. George Rose Smith and Robinson, JJ., join in this concurrence.