88 Md. 394 | Md. | 1898
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We entirely agree with the learned Judge who decided this case below that it is one not free from diffi
The testimony of the appellant is to the effect that when the paper which she subsequently discovered to be a release of the mortgage was signed she was sick and suffering with neuralgia — that the appellee was in Hagerstown that day and came home in the evening. “ He said ‘Aunt Jane, I want to borrow one hundred and fifty dollars, I cannot get it unless you go on this paper.’ And I told him I would sign it in the morning, and he said, that would not do, it would have to be signed that
Here then, we have the appellant testifying that she did not know she was signing • a release — that she thought and believed she was signing a note for one hundred and fifty dollars — and the appellee swearing with equal emphasis that Mrs. Shaffer did know what she was signing and that she read the release both before
If the case stood alone on the testimony of the appellant and the appellee — the one alleging the fraud and the other denying it — and if neither one of them were corroborated or contradicted by other circumstances, the assertion of the one would be neutralized by the denial of the other, and, as a consequence, the plaintiff’s allegations would not be proved. Keller v. Kunkel, 46 Md. 570. We must turn, then, to the other evidence in the record to ascertain whether the testimony of either of the parties is strengthened; and this requires us to go somewhat more fully into the facts.
It appears that Mrs. Cowden who is a sister of the appellant, is, as is the appellant, a widow. She has two sons and owns a farm upon which she and they reside. The appellant is childless. Mrs. Shaffer shortly after becoming a widow removed from Pennsylvania and took up her abode with her sister. She very soon determined to purchase a farm, and it seems quite clear from the record that she intended this to be a home for herself and that she designed her two nephews to own it after her death. She finally purchased a farm from Henry Snyder, adjoining the land owned by her sister. The deed as first prepared conveyed the farm to Mrs. Shaffer; but it was not executed and on the same day another was drafted and duly signed and acknowledged;
Whilst we lay out of view and attach but little importance to the declarations made by Mrs. Shaffer to numerous witnesses to the effect that the farm belonged to John; because, the title standing in his name, those declarations, or many of them, are equally as consistent with the existence of the mortgage as with its release; yet there is a circumstance of considerable moment to
It is apparent that Mrs. Shaffer’s memory is faulty. She testified, as already pointed out, that the paper she signed on April the fourteenth, she thought and believed was a note for one hundred and fifty dollars; and when asked if she had signed for the appellee any other paper on- that day she replied that she had not. Now, the record discloses that she in fact did sign, as surety for him on that very day a note, and the note was produced and her signature was identified by her. The note was for one hundred dollars. She has manifestly confused that transaction with the signing of the release, and this is made more apparent by her statement that at the time she signed what she says she supposed to be the. one hundred and fifty dollar note, but which was in fact the release, the appellee told her Mr. Wingert had procured the paper she was asked to sign, from the Court house and that it had to go back in the morning. ' And this is what the appellee declares he stated to her when
Mrs. Shaffer had a perfect right to give to her nephew this farm and she had the right to release the mortgage which had evidently been executed at the instance of Mr. McNulty, and not because she originally contemplated requiring it. If she did this freely and voluntarily no one but her creditors, if she had any, could question or impeach it. She has made no objection because the deed stands in the name of the appellee. Her sole ground of complaint is that the mortgage which she herself never exacted but which was executed solely because her agent McNulty insisted on having it, has been released.
But if Mrs. Shaffer did not read the release before executing it, it was certainly in her power to have done so. Her failure to read it proves, not fraud on the part of the appellee, but carelessness on her own part. It would lead to endless confusion and uncertainty in all business transactions, if a person who executes without coercion or undue influence or persuasion, a solemn reléase under seal, can subsequently impeach it on the ground of her own carelessness, though at the very time of its execution she might, had she seen fit, have advised herself fully as to the nature and effect of the act she was doing. She cannot invoke her own heedlessness to impeach her solemn release, and then call that heedlessness some one else’s fraud. If she did not' know what she was signing it was her plain duty to use her eyes and ascertain. Spitze v. B. & O. R. R. Co., 75 Md. 171.
. Failing to discover in the record any confirmation of Mrs. Shaffer’s testimony, but perceiving that it is flatly contradicted by the appellee, and that the attendant circumstances to which we have alluded give the color of probability to the claim of the appellee, we are constrained to withhold the relief she seeks and to affirm
Decree affirmed with costs above and below.