## Facts

- Rose L. Walters owned residential property at 450 Oak Street in Webster Groves, Missouri, immediately west of Charles D. Tucker, Sr. and Myrtle Tucker’s property at 446 Oak Street.
- Both parties traced title to a common grantor that owned all of Lot 13 in a subdivision plat.
- A 1924 deed in Walters’s chain conveyed “The West 50 feet of Lot 13,” and subsequent conveyances repeated that description.
- Walters claimed the boundary made her parcel 50 feet wide measured east–west from the west side of Lot 13.
- The Tuckers contended the deed intended 50 feet of frontage along Oak Street; because the street ran at an angle to the platted lot lines, this interpretation would produce a parcel only about 42 feet wide at the rear and would shift the boundary into an area used with Walters’s home.
- Walters brought a quiet title action seeking a judicial declaration of the correct boundary line.
- The trial court found the description “unclear,” admitted extrinsic (parol) evidence to determine intent, adopted the Tuckers’ frontage-based interpretation, and entered judgment for the Tuckers.
- Walters appealed, arguing the deed description was clear and could not be varied by extrinsic evidence in a quiet title suit.

## Issues

1. Whether the deed description “The West 50 feet of Lot 13” was ambiguous (including latently ambiguous when applied to the ground) so as to permit admission of extrinsic evidence to change how the “50 feet” was measured.
2. Whether a court in a quiet title action may use parol evidence to effectively rewrite an unambiguous deed description to reflect an asserted unexpressed intent.

## Decision

- The Missouri Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
- The Court held the description “The West 50 feet of Lot 13” was clear and unambiguous and identified a 50-foot-wide strip off the west side of Lot 13 measured by the lot lines.
- Because the description fit the tract claimed by Walters and did not apply with equal certainty to a different tract, there was no latent ambiguity.
- The trial court erred by admitting and relying on extrinsic evidence that contradicted the deed’s plain terms and effectively reformed the deed in a quiet title proceeding.

## Legal Principles

- When a deed description is unambiguous on its face and, when applied to the ground, identifies the property with certainty, parol evidence is inadmissible to show the parties intended to convey different land.
- Extrinsic evidence may be used to locate the property described or explain a true latent ambiguity, but it cannot contradict the deed or substitute a different description.
- A construction that changes a stated conveyance (e.g., from a 50-foot width to an approximate 42-foot width based on street frontage) amounts to reformation and is not permissible absent a proper reformation claim.

## Conclusion

The court construed “The West 50 feet of Lot 13” to mean a 50-foot strip measured from the west boundary of the platted lot, rejected the use of parol evidence to convert the description into street-frontage measurement, and required further proceedings consistent with that construction.


Walters v. Tucker, 281 S.W.2d 843 (Mo. 1955)