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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 04/23/96 OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
NO. 94-CA-01130 COA ROBERT G. MORAN APPELLANT v. SANDRA G. MORAN (OWEN), WILLIAM R. MORAN AND MELISSA G. MORAN, AND THE FEDERAL LAND BANK OF NEW ORLEANS, MORTGAGOR APPELLEES

THIS OPINION IS NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION AND MAY NOT BE CITED, PURSUANT TO M.R.A.P. 35-B

TRIAL JUDGE: HON. JASON H. FLOYD, JR. COURT FROM WHICH APPEALED: HANCOCK COUNTY CHANCERY COURT ATTORNEY(S) FOR APPELLANT: GAIL D. NICHOLSON CHESTER D. NICHOLSON ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: MALCOLM F. JONES NATURE OF THE CASE: DIVORCE/PROPERTY DEED DECREE TRIAL COURT DISPOSITION: FINAL DIVORCE DECREE DETERMINED FEE SIMPLE TITLE TO PROPERTY

BEFORE FRAISER, P.J., MCMILLIN, AND PAYNE, JJ. PAYNE, J., FOR THE COURT:

This case involves the question of whether a property settlement agreement of an irreconcilable differences divorce operated as a deed reserving only a life estate for the parties and conveying fee simple interest to the parties' children. A second question concerns whether the court properly corrected the legal description of the property to effectuate the parties' intent. We find that the chancery court did not err in its judgment and therefore affirm.

FACTS Robert G. Moran and Sandra G. Moran were divorced in March 1987. The parties owned an unimproved forty-acre tract of real property and an adjacent improved thirty-acre tract that also included their marital home. Their irreconcilable differences divorce included a property settlement agreement in which they: (1) agreed to own their homestead property as tenants in common and (2) conveyed a vested remainder in the one-half interest of each to their two children as joint tenants, to take effect upon the Morans's deaths. Paragraph VI of the agreement described the real property as follows: That certain parcel of land being the SW 1/4 of the NE 1/4 of Section 25, Township 5 South, Range 15 West, less and except the NW 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of the NW 1/4 of Section 25, Township 5 South, Range 15 West, situated in Hancock County, Mississippi.

This description positively recited the SW 1/4 of the NE 1/4, which is a forty-acre tract of unimproved land. It did not recite the SE 1/4 of the NW 1/4, which is an adjacent forty-acre improved tract on which the marital home and improvements exist. It did, however, also recite the ten-acre exception to the adjacent forty-acre improved tract as "less and except the NW 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of the NW 1/4." The description created an ambiguity because it referred to a second, nondescribed quarter-quarter section. Although the paragraph VI description did not recite the second improved tract of approximately thirty acres, the agreement directly and indirectly described the thirty-acre tract within its other paragraphs. The chancery court's judgment and its relationship to the description omission are the basis for this appeal. The court's judgment stated that the parties' property settlement agreement reserved for Robert and Sandra life estates in each parties' one-half interest. It stated that the agreement operated as a deed conveying both parties' fee simple interest, in both the unimproved forty-acre tract and the improved thirty-acre tract, to their two children as tenants in common and not as joint tenants with right of survivorship. Finally the judgment stated that the court would correct the agreement's property description, which was incorrect due to a scrivener's error, to reflect a conveyance of all seventy acres. Robert now appeals the court's decisions regarding the real property. ANALYSIS I. DID THE CHANCERY COURT ERR BY REFORMING THE LANGUAGE OF THE FINAL DIVORCE DECREE AND PROPERTY SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT?

Robert frames this issue in terms of whether the court erred in adding the improved thirty-acre tract to the property description within the property settlement agreement. However in his argument, he also contends that it was never his intent to transfer any of the seventy acres to his children. He argues that the court should not have reformed the language of the property settlement agreement to include all seventy acres in the land that was conveyed. He believes that he only wished to provide security against his obligation to pay child support in the event that he or Sandra died before the children reached age twenty-one, in which case the children would get the property. He believes that no mistake occurred in the writing of the agreement, that he never intended to convey his interest in any of the seventy acres, and that Sandra failed to prove his intent to convey the property to the children. Therefore, he directly argues that he never intended to transfer his fee simple title in any of the seventy acres to his children, and he indirectly infers that the court should not have added the thirty-acre tract to the property settlement agreement. The Mississippi Supreme Court has stated that an appellate court is required to follow the substantial evidence/manifest error standard of review. Murphy v. Murphy, 631 So. 2d 812, 815 (Miss. 1994) (citation omitted). Therefore, this Court "will not disturb a chancellor's findings of fact when supported by substantial evidence unless an erroneous legal standard has been applied or is manifestly wrong." Id. (citations omitted). When substantial evidence supports the chancellor's findings, an appellate court shall not disturb those conclusions even if it would have originally found otherwise. Id. (citation omitted); see also Lenoir v. Lenoir, 611 So. 2d 200, 203 (Miss. 1992) (a chancellor's findings of fact will not be disturbed if substantial evidence supports those factual findings). Mississippi statutory law states that a divorce granted on the ground of irreconcilable differences assumes that all matters regarding property rights have been settled within a property settlement agreement. Miss. Code Ann.

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