## Facts

- Leone Pipes was the mother of Karyl Keith Pipes and Beverly J. Sevier.
- Ralph and Leone Pipes owned three Sullivan County, Missouri farm tracts: the Cott Farm, the Sheppy Farm, and the “Home Place” (about 297 acres).
- The Home Place was purchased in 1948 after Keith agreed to remain in the family farm operation; Keith worked with his father until Ralph died in 1967 and continued farming with his mother thereafter.
- A long-standing family plan was that the Home Place would go to Keith and the other two farms would go to Beverly.
- In November 1972, Leone directed attorney Leman Atherton to prepare two sets of deeds consistent with that plan: a deed conveying the Home Place to Keith and deeds conveying the Cott Farm and Sheppy Farm to Beverly. The Home Place deed reserved a life estate in Leone.
- Leone executed the deeds and delivered them to Atherton with instructions that he keep them and deliver them only upon her death.
- Atherton told Leone that if she left the deeds with him for that purpose, “nobody could get them, not even herself,” and Leone stated that was exactly what she wanted.
- Despite that arrangement, Leone later executed and recorded additional deeds concerning the Home Place. Those later conveyances resulted in Beverly and Beverly’s son, Roddy W. Sevier, holding record title to the Home Place as joint tenants.
- In 1981, Keith filed suit against Beverly and Roddy to invalidate the later deeds and to establish title under the 1972 Home Place deed held by Atherton.
- Keith died in 1982. His widow, Violet Pipes, and their four children were substituted as plaintiffs (with Violet also acting as personal representative).
- After a court-tried proceeding, the trial court adjudged that fee-simple title to the Home Place was vested in Violet and the children as Keith’s heirs, subject only to Leone’s reserved life estate. Beverly, Roddy, and Leone appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Leone’s transfer of the executed Home Place deed to attorney Atherton, with instructions to deliver it to Keith only upon Leone’s death, constituted a valid present delivery that vested title in Keith (subject to Leone’s life estate).
2. If the 1972 delivery was valid, whether Leone’s later recorded deeds could defeat Keith’s interest and vest title in Beverly and Roddy.

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, affirmed the trial court’s judgment.
- The court held there was a valid delivery of the 1972 Home Place deed because Leone intended the conveyance to take effect presently and surrendered dominion and control over the deed by placing it with Atherton under instructions that made the deposit irrevocable.
- Because Keith’s interest vested upon that delivery (subject to Leone’s life estate), Leone’s later deeds purporting to convey the Home Place to Beverly and Roddy were ineffective against Keith and, after his death, against his heirs.

## Legal Principles

- Delivery of a deed may be accomplished by delivery to a third person for the use and benefit of the grantee, with instructions to deliver to the grantee, if the grantor parts with all dominion and control over the instrument and intends the conveyance to vest presently.
- A deed is not rendered testamentary merely because the grantee’s possession or enjoyment is postponed until the grantor’s death; the controlling question is the grantor’s present intent and loss of control over the deed.
- Once a deed has been effectively delivered and title has vested in the grantee (even subject to a reserved life estate), the grantor cannot later defeat that title by executing and recording inconsistent conveyances.

## Conclusion

Pipes v. Sevier upheld a quiet-title judgment awarding the Home Place to Keith Pipes’s heirs, subject to Leone Pipes’s life estate, because Leone’s 1972 placement of the executed deed with her attorney—paired with instructions that made the deposit beyond her retrieval—constituted a present delivery that vested Keith’s interest and rendered Leone’s later, inconsistent deeds to Beverly and Roddy ineffective.


Pipes v. Sevier, 694 S.W.2d 918 (1985)