This case involves the validity of a 2005 deed, as well as 11 earlier deeds that the grantor executed between 1975 and 1980 but retained in his possession and recorded approximately 20 years later after altering the deeds to substitute new grantees for the original grantees. The case has a convoluted procedural history, but ultimately the trial court granted summary judgment upholding both the 2005 deed and the 1975-1980 deeds, and the plaintiffs have appealed that ruling. The two issues that control this appeal are: 1whether the trial court properly rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that the 1975-1980 deeds were delivered to them as a matter of law because the grantor was at some point their fiduciary for certain purposes; and 2 whether a prior Court of Appeals’ decision affirming the validity of the 2005 deed on summary judgment was res judicata as to further attempts to dispute the 2005 deed. The answer to both queries is yes. The plaintiffs raise additional claims on appeal, but they are insubstantial. Accordingly, we affirm. 1. The relevant facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs as the parties opposing summary judgment, are as follows. D.B. Smith “the grantor” had extensive land holdings, a large portion of which he leased to a timber company in 1958. Between 1975 and 1980, the grantor executed 11 deeds of the timber land that named his daughter Virginia Smith or his granddaughter Terri Sanders as grantees. The grantor kept a log showing the date each deed was executed, the grantee named, and the land included, but he did not record the deeds at that time. Virginia Smith executed a power of attorney in favor of the grantor in 1976, and the grantor was Terri Sanders’s legal guardian from 1981 to 1988. The grantor handed the deeds to his granddaughter when she was a teenager and told her that the property was hers, but he kept the deeds in his possession and control. The grantor also described the land to his son-in-law as property that he had given to his daughter and granddaughter.
By the time the grantor recorded the deeds in 1997 and 1998, he had changed the names of the grantees on the deeds executed from 1975-1980. Six of the deeds now listed his grandsons, Danny and David Lockridge, as the grantees. The other five deeds listed Danny Lockridge as the sole grantee. The grantor later explained in a recorded affidavit why he altered the deeds. He said that he “changed his mind” about giving the land to Virginia Smith and Terri Sanders because they had not honored him and had refused to sign a document giving the grantor and his wife a life estate in the proceeds from the timber lease on the property. The affidavit stated that “only undelivered deeds . . . were changed while they were still within my power and discretion to change my mind to give them to whomever I willed” and emphasized that the grantor had not altered other deeds conveying land to his other daughter and her family
