Court Opinion

ID: 9610494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:42:24.967589+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:00.346494
License: Public Domain

Schwellenbach, C. J.
(dissenting) — Resulting trusts have been defined in 1 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence (5th ed.) 210, § 155, as follows:
“Resulting trusts arise where the legal estate is disposed of or acquired, not fraudulently or in. the violation of any fiduciary duty, but the intent in theory of equity appears *817or is inferred or assumed from the terms of the disposition, or from the accompanying facts and circumstances, that the beneficial interest is not to go with the legal title. In such a case a trust ‘results’ in favor of the person for whom the equitable interest is thus assumed to have been intended, and whom equity deems to be the real owner.”
In regard to the particular type of resulting trust now before the court, a purchase money trust, the author continues:
• “In pursuance of the ancient equitable principle that the beneficial estate follows consideration and attaches to the party from whom the consideration comes, the doctrine is settled in England and in a great majority of the American states, that where property is purchased and the conveyance of the legal title is taken in the name of one person, A, while the purchase price is paid by another person, B, a trust at once results in favor of the party who pays the price, and the holder of the legal title becomes a trustee for him.” 4 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence (5th ed.) 71, § 1037.
At page 75, the author continues:
“This description assumes that the conveyance to A is made with the knowledge and consent, express or implied, of B, who pays the price, — that the whole transaction is in pursuance of a common understanding or arrangement.”
Now, what was the situation here? Do the accompanying facts and circumstances bolster the assumed intent on the part of the appellant to retain the beneficial ownership? From the evidence, can we determine the nature of this transaction in pursuance of a common understanding or arrangement? The property was purchased in respondent’s name. The parties were living together. He thought that they would get married if he got a divorce. He, to quote his own language, “didn’t want to shack around.” The trial court found that the purpose of purchasing the house at 3109 Tulalip avenue was as a home for the appellant, respondent, and her family; that they (appellant and respondent) decided that they would sell the house and lot where they were then living, and that thereafter a house was moved onto the property now in question. In addition to this, appellant testied that he turned his pay checks over to the respondent, *818and. the expenses of the parties, for purposes both common and private, were defrayed from that source.
No citation of authority is needed for the familiar rule that a trust which may be established by parol testimony may also be rebutted by parol testimony. Appellant himself testified that he purchased the property for the use of both of the parties. The presumed intention on the part of appellant to make himself the beneficial owner of the property and to constitute respondent a trustee, merely to hold the legal title for his benefit, is overcome in the light of his action of vesting in the respondent every use which he himself now claims. It might well be that one qf the motivating factors which inclined appellant to purchase this property in respondent’s name was to escape complications because of appellant’s marital status, and to avoid difficulty in the event that the property was to be reconveyed. But faced with this problem alone, or electing to follow his disinclination to “shack around,” I do not believe that appellant would have allowed the property to be taken in respondent’s name. I believe that the purpose alleged by appellant is overshadowed and rendered secondary by a more real purpose of the parties as evidenced by the use the parties made of the property.
The decision in Creasman v. Boyle, 31 Wn. (2d) 345, 196 P. (2d) 835, is absolutely controlling, and the trial court was correct in leaving the parties where they placed themselves. Appellant has no standing in a court of conscience.