5 Mo. App. 33 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1878
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiff, Margaret J. Miller, is the daughter of defendant, who, in 1860, was regularly appointed guardian of her person and estate, she being then about seven years of age. Her property consisted chiefly of an undivided half of three hundred and ten acres of land, worth, according to the testimony, about $18,000, which she and her only brother, William T. Simonds, had inherited, in part from their mother and in part from an uncle on the mother’s side. The defendant was also guardian of his son, and the two wards reached their majorities, respectively, in 1871. On May 18, 1874, a few weeks before the marriage of Margaret with her co-plaintiff, a deed was executed by the two children, conveying to their father, in consideration of love and affection and the sum of one dollar, a life-estate in their tract of land. This suit is to set aside that conveyance as to the plaintiffs, because of undue influence in its procuration. The Circuit Court decreed in favor of defendant.
It appeared from the evidence that Margaret’s mother died when she was about two years old. Her father married again, but lost his second wife when Margaret was eleven or twelve years of age. From that time until her marriage, excepting a short attendance at a boarding-school in the same county, she lived with her father and brother, the
Upon cross-examination, she said: “I went to Pitman’s school two terms and a half. I quit school, I think, about four years ago. I stayed with my father until I married. I boarded at Pitman’s when at school. At the time I signed the deed, I knew I had an interest in the property, but didn’t know how much. There was no conversation between myself and father between Saturday and Monday,- when the deed was made. It was not mentioned on the way into town. * * * I was then twenty-one years old. I was not insane or crazy at the time I signed it. I understood it was a deed, but did not realize what it really was. I didn’t comprehend it. I understood the language, of course. * * * My father, on the porch, told me he did not need it (the property) ; that it would be a burden to him, and he would get along better without it. I don’t think it was as much as a month from the time father spoke to me about turning him out of house and home, till the deed was made. * * * I gave father a receipt that day, but what I thought was thatit was for $70. * * * Ihave no recollection of its being explained to me. * * * I knew — I had been told — I had property, but as to the quantity I did not know. I never thought seriously about the deed after I executed it, until after I married, —that is,
The defendant testified, in effect, that he came to St. Charles on the Saturday before the deed was written, to meet his son, who had come to get some money ,• he told his son of Robert Miller’s request to settle up the curatorship, and afterwards told both of his children he would bring them to town to settle the same. He did not discuss the manner in which he would settle ; and, as Judge King was familiar with it more than himself, they would go to him. When they got to town, his children got out at Judge King’s office, and he went down to put up the horses. He was gone some time ; went before dinner to-Judge King’s office, and met his son and daughter at about" the door of the office. They informed him that they had made a deed to him, and he insisted that they should do no such thing ; told them he had raised and educated them, and had taken care of their property up to that time, and they would better take their property and do as they pleased with it. He had about $1,200 in the bank, a crop of wheat not sold, and one in the field ; that he would take this and his personal effects, and buy a little home of his own; that his daughter then remarked, “I feel this is just what we ought to do. You have educated and raised us, and we have given you a home when you are old.” After he had remonstrated all he could, he said it would be a trouble taking care of it and paying the taxes, and he would rather they would keep it. He thinks the deed was then written. Whether they had signed it he can’t say, but it was before it was delivered to him; the receipt was also delivered that day. The settlement of the curatorship was his entire business in town,
In the cross-examination, defendant testified that he was fifty-five years old. His daughter and he had had no trouble, except about the marriage with Miller. As to other matters, she was obedient, and did what he requested. He had acted the part of both mother and father.
Eudolph Hillenkamp testified that, in August, 1874, he had a conversation with William T. Simonds, who declared his opposition to the marriage of his sister with Miller, but said that “ it made no difference ; that his sister was all he got; that the other part we had fixed before.”
William T. Simonds, a practising physician, testifying about the execution of the deed, said : “ I remarked to my sister that father was getting old; that I had a profession which would support me; that I had heard she was going to get married, and that her husband would support her; and suggested the idea to give him (father) a home ;
It ajDpeared in evidence that, at the time when the deed was executed, the brother and sister gave to their father a paper purporting to acquit and release him of all indebtedness to them as their guardian. Their personal estate in his hands consisted of the proceeds of a note for $80, with compound interest from 1860.
John G-. Miller, a witness for plaintiff, testified to a con•versation, in which the defendant “said that he was in trouble ; that he did not care for himself; that his life was not worth any thing to him; that if certain ones crossed his path, and Silas Miller was one, he didn’t know what would be the consequeuce. His daughter’s marriage was talked of, too. He said he was opposed to the wedding of his daughter to Silas, and that I knew that. He said he was bitterly opposed to it. * * * Robert spoke of the property, and suggested the property might change hands. They were twenty-one, and it was theirs. He said he knew that.” This conversation occurred a short time before the mar:riage.
The law assumes that an infant has not the discretion to manage or dispose of his property, with those clear perceptions which pertain to maturity, of advantage or disadvantage to himself. Between this season of incapacity and its opposite, an arbitrary line is drawn at the nineteenth or -twenty-second birth-day, according to sex. On the day next before this, he can be trusted to do nothing with his own. Yet in the ensuing forty-eight hours he becomes .competent to dispose, if so inclined, of every thing he has. Equity, however, while it follows the law in holding to the infant’s incapacity up to the last day of his minority, will yet, for certain purposes, extend the term of disability when the reason for its recognition has not ceased. A reason .most generally effective in that direction is the natural influ
Defendant’s counsel here lay much stress on the fact that, at the time when the deed was executed, the grantor was twenty-one years of age, or in the third year of her legal majority. No time can be fixed for the duration of such a parental influence as may be abused after the guardianship has ceased. Each case must be determined by its-peculiar circumstances. In the one before us, the testimony is ample to show the correlative habits of submission and authority, of dependence and protection, as fully exhibited between the daughter and father when this deed was executed, as they had been during her minority. She was still living under the defendant’s roof, having no other protector. She had been kept at a boarding-school by him for more than a year after attaining her majority. It was with reference to certain events that had occurred about the time-of the execution of the deed, that he testified of her obedience to him, and of his having “ acted the part of both mother and father.” Whether three or more years have-elapsed since the minor’s technical emancipation is immaterial in equity, if the moral relations between the parties remain unchanged.
It is necessary to observe that, when a conveyance is liable to the objection of undue influence operating upon the grantor, it is wholly immaterial whether the person from whom the vitiating influence proceeds be the grantee or a third person who derives no benefit from the transaction. In the case of Ranken v. Patton, recently decided by our Supreme Court, and not yet reported, this rule is emphatically affirmed, with citations of numerous English and American authorities. That case and the present one are,
Robert Ranken died in St. Louis, in 1849, without children, and intestate, leaving a large estate. His brother David, claiming to be the only relative not an alien, took possession as sole heir of the property. There was a sister living in Ireland, whose descendants, figuring in the subsequent litigation, were three children, Mary, Sarah, and Thomas R. Patton, and two grandchildren, Sarah and William Marcus Patton, the offspring of another son. These grandchildren were born in Philadelphia. Proceedings instituted in their behalf resulted in a compromise with the legatees of their great-uncle, David Ranken, by which they acquired one-fourth of the estate, valued at about $240,000. In 1865, Sarah Patton, the younger, then twenty-three years of age, was living in Ireland, with her grandmother and her two aunts, Mary and Sarah, who had raised her from an orphaned infancy. William Marcus, her brother, was doing business with his uncle, Thomas R. Patton, in Philadelphia. This young man had reasoned himself into the belief that upon himself and his sister rested a moral obligation to make their two aunts and their uncle, Thomas R., equal with themselves in the property which had come from their great-uncle Robert, notwithstanding the law, which, by reason of existing alienage, had declared otherwise. He wrote his sister to this effect, proposing that they should convey one-half of their respective shares. Sarah wrote to her uncle Thomas, to be advised of her duty in the premises. He answered, refusing either to advise or to accept for himself any such conveyance. In one letter he said: “Now, in this matter, I cannot advise you. Your brother made a deed to them [the aunts] of a certain
Comparing that case with the one before us, we discover some remarkable parallels. In each we find a brother and sister just past their respective minorities. The sister yet
In all these particulars, either one of the two cases is a - mere reproduction of the other. With so many points of coincidence, a departure in their conclusions cannot be-well grounded on the few and slight differences appearing - in other features. One of these differences appears in the-fact that in the Kanken case the influence of the uncle,,
Another apparent point of difference lies between the declared motive of gratitude in the one case, and that of justice or common honesty in the other. But whatever might be the comparative weight of these several motives, when manifestly spontaneous, we do not perceive that either is entitled to special consideration if it be the mere product of cultivation by an interested party. An undue influence will be none the less vicious because the finer feelings of our nature are made the instruments of design. We quote again from the opinion in the Ranken case : “ Had such a deed been prompted by motives of affection,-it would not be clear that a court of equity would allow it to stand. In the case of Garvin v. Williams, 44 Mo. 476; 50 Mo. 211, the testator was a young man in the last stages of consumption, without father or mother, brothers or sisters. Gratitude to his guardian and his wife prompted the will. The testator had no prospect of being able to enjoy the property, and he preferred that it should go to his guardian, who had been kind to him, instead of to distant relatives, where the law would carry it. Yet this court, upon general principles established in regard to transactions between guardian and ward, set the will aside. * * * It (Miss Patton’s conveyance) was, to say the least, improvident and unnecessary, had any feeling of gratitude prompted it. The plaintiff was
Just such a treatment of the subject is appropriate here. The plaintiff was hardly competent to weigh against her brother’s appeal to her sense of gratitude, and her father’s evident repugnance to being “turned out of house and home,” the importance to her own well-being of preserving some basis, however meagre, for a future support, to say nothing of the duty to her intended husband, of bringing what she might into the common stock. So far as any real foundation for gratitude was concerned, there does not seem to have been more than is universal in the relations of children to their parents. It might possibly be considered less, if any thing, from the fact that the defendant had, in the discharge of his ordinary parental duty, drawn material aid from the estates of his children. No prevailing views of filial obligation, nor yet of prudent beginnings in life, are supposed to recommend that a daughter, on coming of age, shall surrender her whole inheritance as a compensation to her father for having done only what, by natural and social law, he .was bound to do without recompense.
We conclude that the conveyance in question was, as to the plaintiff Margaret, not a spontaneous act; that it arose from the suggestions of others; that it was pressed upon her as a moral obligation ; that this pressure came directly from the brother, whose advice she bad been accustomed' to follow; and indirectly, though perhaps more effectively, from her father, who had expressed his fear of her exercising her rights of property; that if gratitude prompted the act, it was a gratitude dictated by another, and obeyed as-a direction rather than followed as an impulse of the affections ; that no intelligent judgment sanctioned, or could possibly have sanctioned, a proceeding so grossly improvident in a young girl just entering life, and about to take
All the judges concurring, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.