202 P. 1110 | Mont. | 1921
delivered the opinion of the court.
This action was brought by the administratrix of Catherine Sullivan to set aside a deed executed and delivered by the deceased to the defendant on March 29, 1913.
The complaint alleges that the. defendant Kate Danahey, by
' The issues were made up by an answer consisting of general denials. The cause was tried by the court without a jury, and written findings were made to the effect that the contract and deed were invalid and without consideration, for the following reasons: That on March 29, 1913, Catherine Sullivan was “so mentally and physically weak that she was entirely incompetent to manage her own affairs, or to realize what she was doing, so far as the conduct of any business or financial affairs was concerned, and was entirely incapable of entering into any valid contract of any kind or description”; and that while in that condition she was by the defendant “unduly influenced and compelled to execute and deliver” the two instruments to'her; that she WAs so physically weak and susceptible to the wiles and undue influence of the defendant that she was unable to resist her dominating will. The court also found that the whole consideration was so fraudulent, unconscionable, unfair and inadequate that the transaction was invalid; and “that the said Kate Sullivan, subsequent to the execution of the said deed, denied making the same, had no knowledge that she had made it, and repudiated it in its entirety. The court also found that the contract for the care and keep of the deceased until her death, being the consideration for the deed, was after its making violated, repudiated and abandoned by the defendant.
Upon the findings of fact, the court made conclusions of law nullifying the contract and deed; awarded to plaintiff the sum
Appellant insists that the complaint is fatally defective in failing to allege that Catherine Sullivan, when she made the deed, was “entirely without understanding” within the meaning of section 3595 of the Revised Codes, and that a judgment based upon a complaint so fatally defective and supported by proof of no greater probative value than is shown here has no legal foundation at all. The trouble with counsel’s argument is it assumes that neither the averment nor the proof sustains the finding that Catherine Sullivan was unable to understand the scope and effect of her purported agreement, or that she was unable, by reason of her lack of mental and physical strength, to resist the pressure of the importunities and commands of Mrs. Danahey. Involved and inapt as its averments are, the complaint, as a whole, states enough to admit proof from which the inference could fairly be drawn that the act of Mrs. Sullivan in putting her cross to the documents and handing them over to Mrs. Danahey were physical acts, responsive merely to the overpowering will and commands of the defendant — a substitution of her will for that of Mrs. Sullivan’s, and was the consummation of one mind where two are indispensable.
In the ease of Murphy v. Nett, 47 Mont. 38, 130 Pac. 451, the pleader undertook, in similar language, to make the same charges as are embodied in the complaint in the present action. Expressing the opinion of this court upon the sufficiency of that sort of a pleading, Mr. Justice Sanner uses this language: “As such influence is seldom exercised openly, it cannot be expected that a pleading should specify with particularity the entire details of the manner in which it was used. If ultimate facts are alleged from which the legal conclusion of undue influence fairly follows, it is sufficient to support proof.” It therefore necessarily follows that' if the proof is consistent with
He proceeds further, however, with the contention that the
The sufficiency of the complaint was not tested by demurrer,
Defendant testified that some months after the execution of
In answer to the contention that the findings are so
Putting the case of appellant in its strongest light, we are unable to find any ground upon which the judgment ought to be disturbed. Therefore it and the order refusing defendant a new trial are affirmed.
'Affirmed.