12 Mo. App. 293 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1882
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a suit in equity to set aside a deed of gift made by the plaintiff to the church of which she was a member. The church in question is an incorporated religious society known as the First German Church of the New Jerusalem. At the time of the making of the gift, the plaintiff was a widow about seventy-two years of age, infirm in body and feeble in mind, though she had been a person of good intelligence. She had long been a member of this particular religious denomination, and of this particular society. In fact, it was organized in her house some forty years ago, soon after she came to this country from Germany, and during the first year of its existence, the little congregation used her house as their place of worship. The evidence tends to show that she was greatly attached to the church,, and that she and
Mrs. Caspari, however, had long contemplated leaving a legacy to the church; and this desire on her part will explain the peculiar circumstances of his leaving such a will, having no property on which it could- operate. Mrs. Caspari and her husband had, it seems, agreed with each other so to make their wills as to leave $3,000 to the church ; and, in their ignorance of the law, as we are bound to infer, they supposed that the proper way in which to do this, was for Mrs. Caspari to leave a legacy to him of $3,000, in her will, and for him in his will to bequeath it back to her for her life, remainder to the church ; aud it seems that such wills were made. But this arrangement was broken into by the circumstance that Mr. Caspari died first, so that he left
When Mr. Morgens died, the pastor became Mrs. Caspari’s business adviser. Such matters of business as she could attend to herself, such as paying taxes, receiving rents, and the like, she attended to in person ; but, as she could not write in English, when it became necessary to write receipts, he wrote them for her. He also took charge of and kept her chief papers relating.to her property, and he testifies that in business matters she generally followed his advice.
The discovery of the fact that Mr. Morgens had died without taking steps to secure the bequest to the church, stimulated the pastor to persuade Mrs. Caspari to put her intended bequest into the form of a promissory note ; he thinking, that if it were done in that way, her heirs would be less likely to succeed in setting it aside, than in case it should take the form of a provision in her will. Moreover, it was no doubt thought that, if she should make it as a bequest in her will, the influence of her step-children, or other circumstances which might arise, might induce her to revoke it. It was, therefore, thought desirable to put it in the form of an executed gift; and, accordingly, the pastor and ,two influential members of the congregation per
The circumstances under which this note was given ought to be noticed. In the first place, it is clear that the note would not have been given but for the persuasions of the pastor. He had frequent conversations with Mr. Schloeman, the treasurer of the church, in which the fact was discussed that Mr. Caspari had left no estate from which the bequest of $3,000 could be paid. In these conversations the pastor adverted to the fact that, although Mrs. Caspari had made a will, yet she had made no provision therein for the church. It seems that other members had acquired knowledge of this fact, and had become anxious that Mrs. Caspari should do something, so that, in case she should suddenly die, the church should receive the money spoken of. Finally, Mr. Schloeman urged the pastor to call upon Mrs. Caspari, and, if nothing else could be obtained, to get a note from her, he himself refusing to go. The pastor went and persuaded Mrs. Caspari to execute the note. He says in his testimony : 44 I went and saw her and requested her to give the money during her life time, which she refused. * * * I went and persuaded her to give us anote. * * * She never thought of giving anything during her life time, or anything until I spoke to her. I told her she had made no provision in her will; and in case she should die, the church would get nothing, and it was right she should do something for the church, as she had spoken of it before. I told her the church was nearer to her than anybody on earth; and for that reason she should do whatever she thought proper. Then she answered: 4 Well, I want to do what is right, and you know what is right, and you do what is right for me.’ After that we concluded to write out such a note.”
When the plaintiff had thus consented to give the note,
The pastor testifies that he did not indorse the note, with the other two brethren, because he did not wish his handwriting to appear in the transaction. He says: “I knew from other cases reported in the papers —I remember one of a Catholic bishop who had been called to the stand to testify whether he had anything to do with the case, and he testified he had. I found there a will, I think it was, was annulled on that account; and for that reason, I did not want anything to do with it, besides the conversations.” For the same reason, he had his wife copy at various times other writings connected with the gift. “ I did not,” says he, “ want anybody to know that I had written them. I feared it might have too strong an influence against the gift.”
When the note was thus executed, indorsed, and delivered to the treasurer, the folding-doors of the office were thrown open, and it was announced that Mrs. Caspari had done something for the church. The pastor’s wife brought out a bottle of wine ; the treasurer proposed a toast, and they all drank “ to the health of Mrs. Caspari, that she may live long and do many good things for the world yet.”
Afterwards a fear came into the minds of the pastor and the treasurer of the church, that even the giving of this note • might not be sufficient to enable them to get the money after Mrs. Caspari’s death. “ I spoke of it,” says the pastor, “ that in case we should present that note to the court, we might be asked what was the value Mrs. Caspari received, to which we, of course, could not answer. We knew she had not received any money, nor anything else, in the worth of material things, for which the note was executed.
Now, it does not appear that Mrs. Caspari bad any money at that time, but she had anote of Gustav Morgens, dated February 16, 1876, for $4,000, payable to her order four years after date, with interest from date at seven per cent per annum. It occurred to the pastor that, although this note was for $1,000 in excess of the amount which Mrs. Caspari
As in the case of the $3,000 note, the meeting at which this $4,000 note was indorsed by Mrs. Caspari and tui'ned over to these gentlemen for the church, took place in the evening, at the pastor’s house. It was arranged that it should take place there, because Mrs. Caspari did not want anyone at her house to know anything about the affair. Her eldest step-son was living with her at the time, and a tenant was living in a separate part of her house. Again the
There is a conflict of testimony as to whether the $3,000 note was there destroyed or restored to Mrs. Caspari. Mr. Schloeman, the treasurer, testifies that he brought it with him, and delivered it to Mrs. Caspari at the meeting at which the $4,000 note was turned over to them. Mrs. Caspari, on the contrary, testifies that she does not recollect that she ever received it back. The recollection of Mr. Schloeman and Mrs. Caspari are both very deficient as to matters of detail. Mr. Prange testifies pointedly, after being informed that Mr. Schloeman had testified to the contraiy, that the note was not produced at the meeting and was not given up. The pastor testifies to the same thing, and with more emphasis. He says that Mr. Schloeman did not bring the $3,000 note to the meeting. “He told me he would keep it for a while ; that, in case the $4,000 note might not prove very good, the $3,000 note was there to fall back upon.” *
We may now take another step in this history. The fact that Mrs. Caspari had given this $4,000 note to the church was, as yet, known only to the pastor, to Mr. Schloeman, and Mr. Prange. And now, about two months after the giving of the note, as the pastor testifies, he discovered an opportunity to purchase a new church edifice, which the society needed. He communicated this to some of the mem
One of the members, to whom the fact of the gift of this $4,000 note had been communicated, Mr. Detzel, urged the necessity of Mrs. Caspari putting her donation in the form of a deed of gift. At his request the pastor asked Mrs. Caspari to execute a deed, assuring her that it would not be to her injury, and repeatedly promising her that she would have her interest during her lifetime. He says : “ I told Mrs. Caspari that it was thought the note might not be full security, and a deed of gift was desired, and it would not be to her injury, because it was only to secure the money for the church, so that her children could have no right to come and claim it in case she should die. Then she said : ‘But I want my interest.’ I said : ‘Yes, you shall have your interest; that will be the consideration.’ The thought was, We were all satisfied. No one objected. I made her the pi’omise, ‘ You shall have your interest;’ and with the promise that she should have her interest, which she asked for hundreds of times, perhaps, if any, then she consented that I might draw up such a deed of gift, which I did. I was not told by her how to draw it. She just trusted in me that I would write it as well as I was able. She never doubted their honesty connected with this; she always thought that the people were sufficiently honest to keep the promise. I wrote the deed of gift and gave it to her.” And so the deed of gift was drawn up by the pastor in his own handwriting. A copy was made by the pastor’s wife,
It will be observed that nothing was said in this deed of gift about interest. This was not put in, as the pastor says, “ because it was feared by the whole congregation that if the congregation would pay the interest, the children might come and say it was only borrowed money. So the words mentioning about interest were left out on jmrpose, so that no one would have a claim on the money. * * * We told her that we had left out the interest clause, on account of any trouble after her death, so that no one should have any claim on the money after she died. At the same time it was told her that the interest would be jiaid her, although it was not mentioned in the jiajier.”
The pastor put the deed of gift on record, and after this had been done, he presented the deed of gift and note at a meeting of the congregation, and this is his narrative of what took place: “ I went to the meeting of the congregation, showed them the papers I had in my hands, and told them that such a deed of gift had been drawn, had been signed, and recorded; that, according to the deed of gift, the gift was a full gift, but that Mrs. Caspai’i claimed to draw her interest during her lifetime; that there was no mention made of interest in the deed of gift on purpose, but I wanted the congregation to know that, though there was no mention made of interest in the deed of gift, it was desired and conditioned by Mrs. Caspari, that she should have her interest. * * * The understanding was, that the congre
We are satisfied from the whole testimony, that this note which drew interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum, was given to the church upon the condition that the donor should enjoy the interest which would accrue from the amount of money which it represented, during her life ; that the society understood that the gift was made upon this condition ; that they accepted it with this understanding; but that, in order that it should have the appearance of an out- and-out gift, and not that of a loan, an effort was made to avoid the appearance of paying interest, or to avoid making any admission of a liability to pay interest.
We ought here to notice the testimony of William B. Morgens as to what was done by him when he first learned that Mrs. Caspari had given the $4,000 note to the church. He was the administrator of his brother Gustav Morgens, deceased, the maker of this note. He was a member of the congregation, though it seems he was not a regular attendant of the business meetings ; he was a friend of long stand-ding of Mrs. Caspari — her countryman, as he call's it, for they came from the same town in the old country. When he learned that she had made this gift, he wanted to be satisfied of two things : First, that the gift was entirely voluntary on her. part; and, secondly, that this was made in such a form that he would be justified in recognizing it as administrator of Gustav Morgens’s estate. He says : “ When I first heard about the gift I was not satisfied, and I went to her and asked her if she had given the money of her free will, and if she was influenced, and if she would not need the money. She said she had plenty of money as long as she lives, and the step-children would get plenty when she dies. Her step-children at the time were of no account, and she did not want them to have the money, and that was the reason she gave it to the church. I asked her if any
Mr. Morgens also told the pastor that he must have a written order from Mrs. Caspari before he would pay the money over to the church. Accordingly the pastor dictated a letter to his wife from Mrs. Caspari to Mr. Morgens ; the pastor’s wife wrote it out, and then the pastor obtained Mrs. Caspari’s signature to it, and handed it over to Mr. Morgens. The pastor testifies that he did this in pursuance of a request from Mr. Morgens, to get such paper for him. This letter was as follows : —
“ St. Louis, February 26, 1878.
“ Mr. W. B. Morgens, Administrator of the estate of the late Gustav Morgens.
“ Dear Sir : I, Elizabeth Caspari, herewith wish to notify you, that on the thirteenth day of February, 1878,1 gave to the First German Church of the New Jerusalem, in St. Louis, the note of $4,000 which I held against the estate of the late Gustav Morgens, and which is dated St. Louis, February 16, 1876 ; and I, Elizabeth Caspari, do herewith instruct and authorize you to pay said note and interest thereunto the said First German Church of the New Jerusalem in St. Louis.
“ [Signed by] Elizabeth Caspari.”
The pastor testifies : ‘ ‘ The whole contents of the paper were my production, and the statement that the interest was to be paid to the church was made so that this also would agree with everything else; that the whole thing should take the appearance as if the gift was presented without a condition. That was our thought and our way of acting, to put the whole thing under such an appearance, and keep
We now come to the circumstance which, no doubt, chiefly led to the bringing of this suit. After the church had made itself certain of realizing the money from this gift so as to enable it to pay for its new edifice, namely, in the summer of 1878, there arose a quarrel among the members of the congregation over the question whether the pastor, Dr. Carriere, through whose influence and exertion this important gift had been obtained for the church, should be retained as their pastor or be discharged. There was a meeting at which a majority voted to request his resignation. Then his friends rallied at another meeting, found themselves in the majority, and rescinded the vote. After-wards, at another meeting, there was a majority against the pastor; he then resigned, and with those who sided with him, established a new congregation. Among those who sided with him was Mrs. Caspari. Her testimony shows that she felt and feels greatly aggrieved at the proceedings which compelled his resignation. She regarded those proceedings as dishonorable ; she pronounced them a shame ; she could remain no longer with those who were the authors of them. This was the substance of her testimony upon this subject. Of course the testimony as to this church quarrel does not go at all into details, beyond showing that the subject of the quarrel was the pastor; nor would this have been proper. We are, therefore, not authorized to attach blame to one side or to the other. But the quarrel arose ; it resulted as we have stated, and it produced in the breast of Mrs. Caspari the feelings we have stated.
When this quarrel arose, she began naturally to feel uneasy about her interest. She remembered that she had nothing to lean upon in this regard but the honor of the congregation, and how far this would serve her under the changed circumstances, she seems to have doubted. She
“ St. Louis, March 1, 1880.
“ Dear Mr. Henry Klages: —
‘ ‘ I feel compelled to request you to see to it that I am at least informed with certainty upon which days I may expect my interest from your congregation. Formerly, I received them on the 16th of February, and the 16th of August, therefore semi-annually, and I wish them so now, and want to know definitely from the congregation, I am tired of constantly begging for them, and as the ‘entire congregation profess to be honest people, they can*312 well say to me I may expect my own, and can hand it tome without my having first to demand it each time.
“ Respectfully,
“ Elizabeth Caspari.”
These letters served to exasperate the members of the congregation. They professed themselves willing to give her donations, but not interest. Except the $70 already spoken of, they gave her neither. Finally, worn out with these entreaties, she consulted a lawyer. This was the first time in this period of three years, so far as the testimony shows, that she had had the benefit of competent and disinterested advice. She now discovered that this gift had been obtained from her thi’ough means which the law does not sanction, and that she could set it aside ; and for that purpose this suit was instituted.
We may now revert briefly to the nature of the confidential relations which the pastor sustained to her. The plaintiff argues that they stood to each other in the three-fold, relation of spiritual adviser and advisee, physician and patient, and confidential agent and principal. That he-stood to her throughout these transactions in the first and last of these relations, is clear. The evidence also shows that he was a homoeopathic physician, but I do not discover any evidence that she was his patient; at least she does not appear to have been under his treatment for any complaint at any of the times when the successive forms of gift were-made to the church by her. We must, therefore, reject the existence of this relation. He nevertheless was, and had been for ten or twelve years, the pastor of her church and her spiritual adviser. During all this time he had lived but a few doors from her. Their families had always been intimate. After the death of Gustav Morgens he became her business adviser. In fact, the testimony shows that he had unbounded influence over her, — one of the witnesses for the defence stating that he could persuade her to do almost any
We think that few cases will be found in the books which afford stronger grounds for invoking the exercise of the jurisdiction of. a court of equity to set aside gifts obtained by undue influence exerted upon persons by others who stand toward them in confidential relations. We need not go outside the books of reports of our own state in order to learn what this jurisdiction is-and how it is exercised. The decisions of our supreme court fully support the grounds on which we are asked to exercise this jurisdiction in the pres
There is another branch of this doctrine upon which alone, if there were no other grounds, we should be required to decide this case for the plaintiff; and this is found in the expression of the rule by Norton, J., in Ranken v. Patton (65 Mo. 378, 410), quoted with approval in Bradshaw v. Yates (67 Mo. 228), namely : “ Where a confidential relation exists, and the subordinate conveys to the superior, courts of equity * * * require the act to be done with a reasonable knowledge of all the facts necessary to an understanding of what the grantor is doing.” And they not only require the act to be so done, but they make it incumbent upon the person through whose instrumentality the doing of the act is procured, to say that it is so done. In other words, as stated by Mr. Justice Story, “ it is incumbent upon persons who receive benefits from those towards whom they stand in confidential relations, to show that such persons had competent and independent
It seems scarcely necessary to say more, unless to notice some of the points urged in favor of this gift by the defendants. First, it is urged that the gift was the result of an intention long harbored by Mrs. Caspari, and in no wise created by the pastor. This cannot be said of the gift as made. Mrs. Caspari had long intended to make a gift to the church, but not this gift. She had intended to give the church something after her death, not during her lifetime. She had not intended to part with the income of any of her estate, which she needed for her support and that of her eldest step son. And, finally, she did not intend to give $4,000, but only $3,000. . It is perfectly clear upon the testimony that, but for the active influence and solicitations of the pastor, the most that the church would ever have received from her would have been a bequest in her will of $3,000.
Again, the learned counsel for the defendants assert that the gift was Mrs. Caspari’s voluntary and deliberate act. That it was her voluntary act is true, and this is true in nearly every case of this kind. It was not obtained under
Again, the learned counsel state that, “ to enable the congregation to buy the new church building, plaintiff did in advance what she had at all times intended to do at her
Counsel also appeal to Mrs. Caspari’s acts in recognition and ratification of this deed. An answer to this is, that all these acts, such as they were, took place before she had consulted Avith counsel, and Avkile she remained under the same influence as the influence which had prompted her to make the gift. There is no evidence whatever, that at the time of any of the attempts made by her, which are appealed to as ratifications of the gift, she had the benefit of any competent or disinterested advice upon the subject.
Finally, it is urged on the part of the defendants that the dissensions in the church furnished the motive for the bringing of this suit. That these dissensions were the occasion of this suit, we do not doubt; that, but for these dissensions, in Avhich Mrs. Caspari felt bound to side with the pastor and against the majority of the congregation, her interest would have been paid, that she would have continued to worship with them in the church edifice bought in part Avith this gift, under the ministrations of her former pastor; and that, under these circumstances, she would not have desired to revoke the gift, although her legal right
The case was determined in the circuit court in accordance with the views here expressed. A decree was entered declaring the deed of gift null, ordering that it be cancelled, and adjudging the defendants to pay to the plaintiff the sum of $3,819.57, the amount which they had collected upon the note, with interest from the filing of the petition. This decree is affirmed.