Frances H. Bach v. Alfred W. Perkins and Sue Garrett Perkins

Plaintiffs below, Alfred W. Perkins and Sue Garrett Perkins, citizens of California, sought and obtained a declaratory judgment against Mr. Perkins’ niece, Frances Hadcock Bach, a citizen of Wisconsin. The district court held that the Perkinses, or either of them, may live in Mrs. Bach’s house in Westwood near Los Angeles at a rental of $15 per quarter so long as either Mr. or Mrs. Perkins survives. Fifteen dollars each three months was the rental accepted from the Perkinses for some years by Mrs. Isabel Perkins Hadcock, mother of Mrs. Bach and the latter’s predecessor in title. For a period of time, Mrs. Bach acquiesced in accepting a similar nominal rent. The property has become quite valuable. Mrs. Bach now wants to sell the house, she says.

Appellees (plaintiffs) never have had a formal lease. There is not extant any instrument creating a life estate. They produce letters from Mrs. Hadcock, now deceased, and Mrs. Bach written in happier days when the Perkinses were the ungrudging objects of the bounty of Mrs. Hadcock and Mrs. Bach. None of these writings satisfy the requirement of a memorandum in writing required by the California Statute of Frauds, which statute was pleaded…