Cerny v. Cerny

Sloan, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant (defendant), Joseph F. Cerny, and the appellee (plaintiff), Jennie Cerny, were married June 27, 1935. She was his second wife; he, her second husband. They were divorced October 23, 1940.

The defendant was divorced from his first wife, Tiny Cerny, the time not appearing in the record, but before the divorce they acquired, as tenants by the entireties on May 18, 1905, a leasehold property then known as 2207 East Eager Street, subject to a ground rent of $26 per annum. By deed of February 14, 1914, they acquired the fee in the property, whereby the leasehold became merged in the fee. After the divorce, by which they became tenants in common, the undivided half interest of Tiny Cerny was conveyed to her former husband, Joseph Cerny, by deed of May 4, 1932, so that he then became the absolute owner of the property in fee. It was not long after their marriage that the plaintiff suggested to the defendant that he put his property in both names, arguing that a man and his wife ought to so hold their property.

All she had was some stock in a business incorporated and conducted by her son, which paid one dividend and then evaporated, and an interest in some property with sisters, which they sold. Their four years of married life do not appear to have been happy; just a succession of quarrels and arguments, according to her story which climaxed in the execution of the deed to both. “Mr. Cerny told me to get out and get a place of my own. I left; and when I went back to get my clothes, he said, ‘You are not leaving here; you are staying,’ and we decided to try it once more. He ⁵⁸⁸ said, ‘To show you I mean business and will treat you right in the future, the up and up, I am going to put your name on the two pieces of property I have, (one of them in Anne Arundel County, which does not figure in this case) to convince you, and we will start all over’.” After that, the plaintiff went to the office of the defendant and got what she thought was the deed, to which she helped herself, and gave it to a lawyer, John E. Buccino, who came to her home, and said she wanted the property put in the names of herself and husband.

What- she gave him was not' the deed for the fee, but the lease or the assignment of it. He was not asked to search the title, but merely to prepare a deed to plaintiff and defendant. There is no evidence that he knew anything about the conveyance of the fee. He said, “When I obtained the deed from Mrs. Cerny, Mr. Cerny came in the back. room.

He conducted a saloon at that time, and I explained to Mr. Cerny what Mrs. Cerny intended to do, what she asked me to do, and he said, ‘It is perfectly all right; we have an understanding. Anything I own I want my wife to get in the event of my death’.” Mr. Buccino had Mr. Cerny execute and acknowledge an assignment of the leasehold, which had been merged in the fee for twenty-three years, to his sister, Lena A. Buccino, who in turn, the same day, re-assigned to Joseph F. Cerny and Jennie Cerny, his wife, the assignments, both saying it was “subject to the payment of the annual rent of Twenty-six Dollars, payable half yearly on the first days of January and July in each and every year,” though in fact the rent had been cancelled by the conveyance of the fee in 1912. The assignments were dated July 27, 1935, and then on October 23, 1940, they were