Belser

This is an action to quiet title to real property. In May, 1925, Julius Henry Belser and plaintiff, his son, purchased the property in question for $7,750. The father paid $7,000, and plaintiff and his wife paid $750. The deed from the vendors was made to the father as grantee, and so recorded. The father died April 18, 1930. In his safe deposit box was found an instrument in the form of a gift deed of the property from the father to plaintiff, dated October 19, 1926.

Plaintiff brought an action in the superior court against the executor of his father’s estate to quiet title to the property. The lower court found that there had been no delivery of the purported deed to plaintiff, and gave judgment for the defendant executor, which was affirmed on appeal. (Belser v. American Trust Co., 125 Cal. App. 344 [ 13 Pac. (2d) 951 ].)

Subsequently, plaintiff brought the present action with the same object, but relying upon a purported earlier gift deed alleged to have been delivered to him on May 4, 1925, the same day the property was purchased from the original owners. Plaintiff testified that this earlier deed was returned to his father a few days later for safekeeping, and that…