68 N.J. Eq. 664 | N.J. | 1905
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The complainant, Mrs. Albert, seeks by her bill in this case to have set aside, and decreed to be null and void, so far as she is concerned, a deed of conveyance made by her and her sister, one of the defendants in the litigation, to the defendant Emily B. R, Haeberly, on the 1st day of December, 1902, for a plot of land in the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The decree of the court of chancery was in favor of the complainant.
Mrs. Haeberly is the stepmother of the complainant, having married the latter’s father, William Eobinson, in the year 1883, when the complainant was about two years old. Ten years later Eobinson died, and four years after his death Mrs. Haeberly married her present husband. The conveyance, the validity of
Assuming that the relations between the complainant and Mrs. Haeberly were those of a mother and daughter, the question presented for solution is whether this conveyance, which it is admitted by the defendants had no other consideration than love and affection, is voidable at the option of the complainant, the grantor. The relationship existing between a loving parent and child is universally conceded to be one of trust and confidence, and during the youth of the child, and even after the child reaches its majority, when it continues to be a member of the parent’s family, the parent ordinarily occupies' the dominant position.
In the late case of Slack v. Rees, decided by this court at the last November Term (66 N. J. Eq. (21 Dick.) 447), we had occasion to consider the question of the validity of a deed of gift made by a father to his daughter, who was a member of his family, where, by reason of the physical condition of the father and his dependence upon the daughter for care and service, the relation ordinarily existing between parent and child had been reversed, and the daughter occupied the dominant position. We then declared, on the authority of earlier- adjudi
. The decree appealed from will be affirmed.