Court Opinion

ID: 9536541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:01:57.769365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:40.880667
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, V.C.J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion disposes of this case on questions which to me are not the real questions involved in the suit. The trial court submitted the case to a jury on two propositions: First, whether or not the quitclaim deed from W. W. Gawf to John L. Gawf, which was duly acknowledged and filed for record, was a forgery; and, second, whether or not W. W. Gawf had obtained the property by adverse possession for more than fifteen years. As to the deed being a forgery, W. W. Gawf pleaded twice, first, in his answer and again in an amended answer, which was verified before a notary, public, that he had signed the quitclaim deed referred to; and that being the case, it was impossible for the deed to be a forgery.
The evidence as to forgery is clearly insufficient. This court laid down the rule in Elliott v. Knappenberger, 177 Okla. 303, 58 P. 2d 1240, as follows:
“1. The evidence to impeach a certificate of acknowledgment to a deed must be clear, cogent, and convincing; such as produces a conviction to a moral certainty that the certificate is false.
“2. Unless the testimony of the grant- or is sufficient to establish to a moral certainty that the certificate of acknowledgment to a deed is false, it must be corroborated.
“3 Where the circumstances are as strongly in favor of the truthfulness of a certificate of acknowledgment as in the falsity thereof, there is no substantial corroboration of the testimony of the grantor.
*78“4. Where the evidence of the grantor in an effort to impeach a certificate of acknowledgment of a deed is not clear, cogent and convincing, such as produces a conviction to a moral certainty that the certificate is false, and is not corroborated, it is not error to sustain a demurrer thereto.”
In McElroy v. Calhoun et al., 177 Okla. 38, 57 P. 2d 827, it is said in the first syllabus:
“A deed valid upon its face and acknowledged before a proper officer is presumed to be valid, and that presumption may not be overcome by evidence consisting only of the uncorroborated testimony of the grantors.”
Is the evidence shown by the record sufficient to warrant the finding that the deed of W. W. Gawf to John L. Gawf was a forgery? There is no direct evidence on this issue except the testimony of W. W. Gawf, the grantor. He was a man 80 years of age and naturally could not remember definitely all that occurred in the year 1930, 18 years before he testified. On direct examination he denied that he ever executed such a deed. On cross-examination, when confronted with a portion of his answer and cross-petition which had been stricken by the court, but which contained the admission of the execution of the quitclaim deed, he admitted that he had signed the verification to the. answer and cross-petition. There is no question, under the rule announced in Tway v. Hartman, 181 Okla. 608, 75 P. 2d 893, but that this pleading in the amended answer, about the execution of the contract and quitclaim deed, could be used as an admission against interest of the defendants in this case.
The circumstances are more presumptive of the acknowledgment by W. W. Gawf of the deed in question. R. D. Howe, the notary public whose certificate appeared on the deed, had died. The deed had been of record for some 18 years. W. W. Gawf had known of the claim of Charlsie Gawf that the land belonged to John L. Gawf at least as early as 1938. Charlsie Gawf asserted that John L. Gawf owned the land in 1933 and in 1938, when she undertook to secure a division of property in her divorce action. It is unbelievable that a quitclaim deed would be used to extend the term of a cont^a^t of sale, and contain no reference to such contract and no words of extension, when such contract could have been extended by writing thereon a few words, including the term of the extension and the signature of the party agreeing to sell. It was error to submit the question of forgery to the jury.
On the question of the statute of limitations, the testimony is clear and un-refuted that John L. Gawf continued to live on this property until two weeks after March 8, 1933, and this lawsuit was filed on March 1, 1948, so there was no question in this regard for the jury to pass on.
I do not think the possession of W. W. Gawf beginning in March, 1933, was adverse. In Brown v. Privette, 109 Okla. 1, 234 P. 577, we held that by the execution and delivery of a deed in general terms the entire legal interest in the premises vests in the grantee, and if the grantor continues in possession afterward, his possession will be that either of tenant or trustee of the grantee. He will be regarded as holding the premises in subserviency to the grantee, and nothing short of an explicit disclaimer of such a relation and a notorious assertion of right in himself will be sufficient to change the character of his possession. In such case th'e grantor is not deemed in law to have adverse possession against his grantee or those deriving title through him. While, in my opinion, it is possible, in some cases, for the grantor to hold adversely to his grantee, the possession of the grantor cannot become adverse to the title of his grantee without an explicit disclaimer of the grantee’s title and a notorious assertion of the grantor’s claim. See 2 C.J.S., Adverse Possession, §95, p. 652. In this case it is clearly apparent from the facts that W. W. Gawf, the grantor *79of John L. Gawf, had deeded this land to John L. Gawf, realizing that there was more against it than it could have been sold for on the depressed market at that time; and W. W. Gawf was fully cognizant of the claim that the wife of John L. Gawf would have in a divorce proceeding; and it was because of the failure of the first mortgagee to foreclose its mortgage that anyone was able to get anything out of this property.
W. W. Gawf claimed that he held the property from 1926, but the facts are clear that John L. Gawf lived on and farmed the land while married to the mother of the minor plaintiffs during the years 1931, 1932, and part of 1933. There is no evidence in the record to indicate that W. W. Gawf, when he went back into possession of the property (not actual, but through tenants) in 1933, ever claimed that he was anything other than a tenant of or a trustee for his son, John L. Gawf. This view that the possession of land by the vendor after the execution and delivery o-f a deed therefor constitutes a trust for the vendee, and that the statute of limitations does not begin to run until the vendor asserts an adverse holding by some unequivocal act brought to the knowledge of the ven-dee, is propounded in Kern v. Howell, 180 Pa. 315, 36 A. 872, 57 Am. St. Rep. 641; Brooks v. Brooks, 105 Neb. 235, 180 N.W. 41. Undoubtedly, John L. Gawf believed that he held the ownership of this land, because when he gave a quitclaim deed he gave it to his sons, to whom he owed a distinct responsibility. In my opinion, there was no adverse possession by the father, W. W. Gawf.
Because of the fact that I am firmly convinced that W. W. Gawf gave a good and valid quitclaim deed to his son, John L. Gawf, and same was properly recorded, and the fact that he has not occupied the property adversely since 1933, I dissent from the majority opinion.