Security Trust & Savings Bank v. Fidelity & Deposit Co.

The appeal from the judgment in favor of the defendant in this action to quiet title to real property, situate in the city of Los Angeles, involves a determination of the legal effect of several and various transactions appertaining to the execution, satisfaction, and release of certain mortgages upon the property in suit. The facts of the case are practically undisputed and, as revealed by the pleadings, proof, and findings, are these: Johanna Agnes Keffel, the owner of the property in suit through whom both plaintiff and defendant derive their respective claims of interest in said property, being in ill health and believing her death to be not far off, transferred the said property by deed dated and delivered March 2, 1906, to her son, Max Keffel, without receiving any valuable consideration therefor, and the legal title thereto remained in the latter until December 3, 1909. At the time of this conveyance, Johanna Agnes Keffel was acting as the guardian of an incompetent son and the defendant, Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland, was surety on her guardianship bond in the sum of six thousand dollars. A portion of the funds of the incompetent which came into the possession…