96 Mo. 252 | Mo. | 1888
Edward A. Farnsworth owned two tracts of land in Montgomery county one of which contained eight hundred acres, and the other four hundred and forty acres. On the twenty-fourth day of September, 1877, said Farnsworth leased the eight hundred-acre tract to one Summers, the term to expire on the first day of January, 1886. On the second day of April, 1878, he leased the four hundred and forty-acre tract to defendant S. A. Kempinsky for a term ending on the second of April, 1888. No money rent was reserved in either of these leases. In the lease made to Summers, the lessee covenanted to erect a dwelling worth four hundred dollars, and a barn worth two hundred dollars, on the land, make one good cistern, two good ponds, set out two hundred fruit-trees, the first year, and keep them in good condition, fence the whole tract with a good fence, and leave the place with a good fence that, will turn stock, and to pay all taxes accruing after Jan-1, 1878, during said term. In this lease the right was reserved to defendant A. Kempinsky to have firewood off the land. In the lease to defendant S. A. Kempinsky of the four hundred and forty-acre tract, she agreed, to build on said land one house with four rooms, one-stable, set out one hundred fruit-trees and twenty-five shade-trees, make one well, one pond, fence the land and pay taxes, and maintain and keep in repair all the-buildings and fences belonging to said premises.
On the seventh of April, 1879, said Farnsworth executed another lease of both tracts to defendant S. A. Kempinsky for the term of ten years, the eight hundred-acre tract for ten years from the first of January, 1886, and the four hundred and forty-acre tract for ten years from the second day of April, 1888. In this lease, it was expressed that a money consideration of one hundred and fifty dollars was paid; the further consideration was that Mrs. Kempinsky covenanted to build on the land, a one-story frame house with two rooms, a
II. The only remaining question is, whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the second averment, in which it is in substance charged that the execution of the lease by Farnsworth was procured by defendant A. Kempinsky, the husband of said lessee, by fraud, in "terms sufficiently specific to authorize this court, after judgment without any objection having been made in the trial court, at any time, to the petition, to consider any legitimate testimony in the record tending to show that its execution was procured by fraud, imposition, or undue influence. In determining the question, whether or not it was. so obtained, it may be conceded in the start, that neither old age, disease, mental weakness, inadequacy of consideration nor confidential relations are per se independent and substantive grounds upon which courts of equity will interfere to relieve a
“ Whenever in conscience the existence of a contract cannot be accounted for except as the product of fraud or imposition, it becomes the delicate but imperative duty of the chancellor to declare it fraudulent though actual fraud be not proven.” The contract of a person with another known to be non compos mentis, not just in itself, or for the benefit of such unfortunate, is ipso facto et constructions legis fraudulent, and fraud will be inferred in a contract made with a person of weak mind not amounting to imbecility or unsoundness when the consideration is grossly inadequate, unless it appear that such weak-minded person had an intelligent comprehension of the disadvantageous nature of the contract to himself, and purposed the benefit to be obtained under it by the other party, or upon some reasonable hypothesis founded upon the facts in the case, other than that of fraud, imposition, or undue influence, such contract can be reasonably accounted for. 2 White & Tudor Lead. Cas., part 2, p. 1242; 1 Story Eq., secs. 227, 228, 234, 235, 236, 237, 244, 246 ; 2 Pom. Eq. 926, et seq.
In the application of these well-recognized principles to the case in hand, the first inquiry is, was the consideration grossly inadequate % By the terms of the
The inadequacy of that consideration is demonstrated in another way not dependent upon the uncertain estimates of witnesses of the value of future rents. It is found in the fact that this same land in the previous leases, in a state of nature, wholly unproductive of any rents, was leased for a like term upon covenants involving a contemplated outlay of more than three times the amount required in this lease, the performance of which was assured to the lessor in the fact that alone by making those improvements could the land be made productive of any value to the lessee. The expense of a fence, a house, a stable, a well and a pond is by no means the only outlay required to place wild land in a condition for profit by cultivation or by renting.
What was Farnsworth’s mental condition at the time the contract was made ? The evidence tends to show that at the time of the execution of his will (July 15, 1876) he was of sound mind, and nothing in the evidence tends to show that he was not in like mental condition up to and including the time when the first lease was executed to Mrs. Kempinsky on the second of April, 1878. Dr. Hornsby, who had been his physician since 1859, testified that he was a sufferer from necrosis of the tibia of one of his legs, and had some peculiarities, but up to the time he last saw him he was entirely competent to transact business; when that was he could not state, whether in 1879 or not. Marcus A. Wolff, who was his financial agent and intimate friend, and who
The last time that Wolff saw him was probably on the sixth of April, 1879, the day before this lease was signed. In this condition of mind and body, he left St. Louis on the seventh and arrived about noon of that day at Wellsville, in Montgomery county, went to the office of defendant A. Kempinsky, whose guest and constant companion he remained until noon of the next day, the eighth, when he was taken by Kempinsky to the train going west towards Macon City. During this twenty-four hours sojourn with Kempinsky, this lease was executed. Its terms, in language that can scarcely be misinterpreted, suggests the condition of his mind when it was done. Within the next twenty-four hours he is found (about noon of the following day) fallen at the door of the room in the courthouse of Macon City where the board of equalization was in session. He cráwled into the room looking wild and haggard, but weak and
i. When this contract is analyzed and viewed in the light afforded by the testimony of Farnsworth’s mental and physical condition the day before and the day after its execution, the conviction is forced upon the mind that it was the product of fraud or imposition upon a diseased mind, a conclusion irresistible unless something is to be found in the previous transactions of Farnsworth, the circumstances attending its execution, the relations of the parties or the condition of his mind on the day of its execution, by which it may be accounted for on some other reasonable hypothesis. We have seen that the previous leases, in their consideration, furnish no presumption to weaken the force of this conclusion and these are the only transactions suggested to that end. In fact, in view of the condition in which his land was placed by those leases, this one, by a man of his age and health whose lands were disposed of satisfactorily for a period beyond which he could not in reason hope to live, could only give occasion for surprise and astonishment even if made for a confessedly adequate consideration. In the relation he sustained to the Kempinskys, nothing is discovered to lead to the belief that they had any claims on, or were likely to be recipients of, his bounty, while the confidence he is shown to have placed in the husband, at least invites a careful scrutiny of the circumstances attending the execution of the contract, and of the testimony as to the condition of his mind at that time. For these circumstances resort must be had principally to the evidence
The next morning Farnsworth was taken to Kempinsky’s office in a buggy where the lease was read to him by Brandt, who then wrote the certificate of acknowledgment on it. About noon he was taken to the train in a wagon with Kempinsky, and departed on his last journey. During the twenty-four hours that he was in Wellsville., he transacted no business with any one except Kempinsky, and during that period no communication was had with him by any one without the shadow of Kempinsky’s presence.
Of the other nine witnesses who, it is claimed, saw and talked with him at intervals during that period,
Of the other three, David Leonard, at whose instance Kempinsky had obtained from Farnsworth, the night before, a written consent to the transfer of the Summers lease to ‘his (Leonard’s) father, and who saw him at the depot with Kempinsky on the eve of his departure, says : “I talked a little with him ; he told me he was glad we had got the lease; that Summers had to give it up. He told me to work the land the same as though it was our own. I could not' see anything wrong about him; I thought he was a man of good business.” The remaining two witnesses, Hammock and Simpson, saw Farnsworth in Kempinsky’s office at the reading of the lease. Hammock says substantially, “Brandt was reading an instrument to him. I inferred it was a lease; he was a fluent reader; when he got through Farnsworth asked him to read it again, to read it slowly. As near as I can remember I heard Farnsworth say, ‘ he was endeavoring to get his land in shape so that it would realize something in the near future, he wanted the land in a shape to suit purchasers.’ I told him, where I had first met him, and in
It thus appears that of the ten witnesses upon whose testimony reliance is placed to show mental capacity in Farnsworth, at the time this contract was executed, four only, Kempinsky, Leonard, Hammock and Simpson, had anything like an opportunity to form an intelligent opinion on the subject. Of the first two, who were the beneficiaries of the only business he transacted at that time, the opinion that he was capable of transacting it was to be expected. If the other two could have known that the contract he had executed and that was then being read to him, was a lease by which an old man, past three score and ten, in feeble health, who was desirous of getting his lands in shape so that it would realize something in the near future, and in a condition to suit purchasers, was in fact taking that land out of the market and placing it in a condition so that it would realize him absolutely nothing for seventeen and nineteen years, the process of ratiocination by which they reached the conclusion that he was in good business capacity and understood what he was doing, would be a strange one indeed. The effect produced on the mind of an ordinarily rational man by this evidence is, that neither he nor they understood the meaning and effect of the contract he was making.
It is much to be feared that Brandt was a too fluent
The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.