58 Md. 491 | Md. | 1882
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, affirming the validity of certain conveyances, which the appellant’s hill sought to have set aside on the alleged ground, that she was coerced into the several transactions by the overpowering will and threats of her husband.
On the twenty-eighth of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine the appellee, Mrs. Louisa J. Butler and her husband, executed to Randolph J. Bouldin in trust for his wife, a lease lor a tract of land in Anne Arundel County, for ninety-nine years renewable forever, reserving to Mrs. Butler the yearly rent of two hundred and forty dollars. The consideration of three thousand dollars which is named in the lease was not paid in money, hut was paid by the conveyance to Mrs. Butler, of a ground rent owned by the appellant issuing out of a lot on Gay street, in the City of Baltimore, amounting to one hundred and eighty dollars.
Upon the 21st of April, 1871, Butler and wife conveyed to the appellant, Mrs. Bouldin, the ground rent of two hundred and forty dollars on the farm in Anne Arundel County, which had been reserved when the lease was made of it to the appellant’s husband. The consideration of this deed was stated in it to he four thousand dollars; but the real consideration was the conveyance by Mrs. Bouldin and her husband to Mrs. Butler of another ground rent, of Mrs. Bouldin, on a lot on Gay street of two hundred and thirty-four dollars, which was valued at $3800. Upon this ground rent rested a mortgage of two thousand dollars, of which eighteen hundred dollars remained due from Mrs. Bouldin to Mrs. M. J. Lyon, to whom Mrs. Bouldin had before that time mortgaged the property. This mortgage, Mrs. Butler in the transaction assumed to pay and according to the proof, afterwards did pay. Deducting this mortgage with which the ground rent was encum
The assignee, Reynolds, proceeded to execute the power and make the sale of the mortgaged premises, for default made; and this hill for injunction and to set aside these several deeds was filed. The Court below adjudged the mortgage to be upon the fee simple interest only, and subject to the leasehold interest of R. J. Bouldin in trust for his wife ; but refused to set aside the deeds, and only enjoined the appellee, Reynolds, from selling the leasehold interest in the Anne Arundel property. Whether th e mortgage covered the leasehold interest is not before us. No appeal is taken from that view of the Circuit Court by the appellees. The appellant complains because the deeds were not set aside upon her allegations and proof, and because the injunction was not made absolute as to the whole estate.
In respect .to the last ground of complaint, it was contended by appellant’s solicitor that the power of sale contained in the mortgage was void, because it was to a mar- ' ried woman, inasmuch as (it was contended,) she could not do what was required of her, as a trustee, by reason of disability under our statutes. We find nothing substantial in this objection to the validity of the power.
'We fully concur with the learned Judge of the Circuit Court in his conclusion, that the appellant “has not made
The hill, which is under oath of Mrs. Bouldin, alleges that she was coerced into the execution of the several deeds by the harshness and threats of her husband, which she could not resist; and strangely enough, in the same sentence she alleges imperfect knowledge of the transactions, and says, that if “the lease, deeds and mortgage had been explained to her or understood by her, she would have refused altogether to sign the said papers, even at the risk of her husband’s displeasure; ” thereby, in the bill itself, by necessary implication, asserting the power of resistance if she had chosen to exert it. Her case in* respect to the charge that she was coerced into the several transactions, rests entirely on her own testimony and on the testimony of her adopted daughter. The assault on the deed of the 28th of September’, 1869, (the considera- - tion for the lease simultaneously executed to R. J. Bouldin in trust for her,) is sought to be sustained by her testimony alone; for the daughter-in-law expressly confines her testimony to the deed of 1871. She was present, or in the adjoining room, when the deed of 1869 was executed, but she heard no threats on that occasion, nor in connection with that deed. So far as her testimony respecting that transaction goes, it tends to contradict Mrs. Bouldin. Upon the testimony of Mrs. Bouldin alone, the Court would not be justified in setting aside a paper so solemnly acknowledged, and so long acquiesced in, without a murmur, and without the slightest hint to the person with whom she had dealt for the space of seven years and more, that, she had been coerced into the transaction, and that her title was not good by reason of it. With the addition of the testimony of the daughter-in-law, in respect to the deed of 1871, the case is not brought up to the standard of legal requirement, to justify the interference of the Court. We have in the testimony of both
She says this fear, of her husband leaving her, continued until she died this bill, when she no longer feared a want of support.
It is unneessary for us to analyze the testimony further, and we forbear pursuing the disagreeable task of showing its insufficiency to support tho allegations of the bill. It is enough for us to say, that it discloses, as we think, full knowledge on her part of the several transactions sought to be impeached; therefore, by her own confession, she ought to have declined to execute the papers, if she did not approve the transaction, as she had full power to do. She admits she had the full possession of her faculties all the while, and she does not appear to have been specially diseased or disabled, so as to tend to weaken them. She was a delicate woman. The testimony established nothing more. There is abundant testimony in the record which was not considered by the Court below, hut was excluded as if inadmissible, and afterwards by decree formally excluded hi deference to the exception taken; and which is really admissible under the issues, and which discloses acts of ownership and acquiescence, which would render it inequitable to hear and heed Mrs. Bouldin’s present complaint; and which strongly tend to discredit the
Decree affirmed.