Watkins v. Brant
| Decision Date | 25 March 1879 |
| Citation | 1 N.W. 82,46 Wis. 419 |
| Parties | WATKINS and another v. BRANT |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Circuit Court for Milwaukee County.
Action to set aside a deed of sixty acres of land from Juliette Watkins, one of the plaintiffs, to the defendant Mary A Brant. The land conveyed was a part of eighty acres which descended equally to Mary A. Brant and Juliette Watkins upon the death of their father, John C. Brant, intestate. The essential facts of the case will appear from the opinion.
Defendant appealed from a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.
Judgment reversed and cause remanded.
For the appellant, there were separate briefs by J. F. McMullen, her attorney, and Jenkins, Elliott & Winkler, of counsel, and oral argument by Mr. McMullen and D. S. Wegg.
For the respondents, there was a brief by John A. Wall, with Samuel Howard, of counsel, and a separate brief and oral argument by Mr. Howard.
The intestate left a widow and two daughters, both adults; one single and one married; the former the appellant here, and the latter one of the respondents.
In his lifetime he had been seized of one hundred and twenty acres of land in one body, of considerable value. But some years before his death he conveyed forty acres of it to his married daughter; and died seized of the remainder. His daughter entered into possession of what was conveyed to her, and her husband, the other respondent, made valuable improvements upon it.
Upon the death of the intestate, his daughter's husband administered upon his estate. When the administrator applied for final hearing and settlement of his account and distribution of the estate, the appellant filed a petition claiming that the conveyance to her sister was made by way of advancement, and praying that the land conveyed might be deducted from the latter's share of the estate. The administrator opposed the petition, which was thereupon heard by the county court; both parties appearing, giving evidence and being heard by counsel. The county court determined that the conveyance was not made by way of advancement, that the two sisters were entitled to equal distribution of the intestate's estate, and rendered judgment against the prayer of the petition. From this judgment there was no appeal.
So far as the record before the court discloses, this judgment appears to be conclusive upon the parties. Ch. 103, sec. 16 R. S. 1858.
The only objection to the conclusiveness of the judgment which counsel was understood to suggest, is that the widow was not a party. Assuming that she was not, it is difficult to understand why she should be a necessary party, or what interest she had in the question. Her right of dower could not well be affected by the distribution of the estate between her daughters. It would be the same however equally or unequally the land should be assigned to them. She had released her dower in the land conveyed to her daughter. She could claim no dower in that; and her dower was wholly unaffected by the question whether the conveyance was made as an advancement or not.
For the purposes of this appeal, the judgment will be taken as conclusive between the parties.
These sisters are women of mature age, approaching middle life. The appellant is some couple of years the elder. So slight difference in years, when both have reached the time of life of these women, can generally warrant no presumption of influence in the elder over the younger. In childhood and early youth, even so small a difference of age might well raise some presumption of influence of an elder sister over a younger. And that influence might sometimes continue through life, when the elder possesses decided superiority over the younger in strength of intellect and of character. It is not said that this was the case with these two sisters; but there are things in the record which suggest that it may have been.
The record presents them in marked contrast to each other. This is not said in much reliance upon the opinions of some of the witnesses, though they are of course entitled to respect. It is said of the appearance of the two sisters throughout the res gestoe and as witnesses in the court below.
The elder sister appears to be a woman of as high intelligence as generally prevails in her sex and rank. She is evidently a person of strong will; positive, hard, shrewd and energetic; vigilant, resolute and persevering; intent upon her own interest, with not much consideration for the interest or feeling of others. In her sphere of life, she is obviously an influential woman. The younger sister appears to be a weak person, of far lower intelligence than her sister, with little comprehension of the ways of the world, or of the rights of persons or of things; strangely indifferent to the interest of herself and her children; timid, facile, sympathetic, and singularly subject to influence; easily roused by one influence, and as easily changed by another; sometimes halting between conflicting influences, and always fickle, uncertain and untrustworthy in matters outside of her household duties. Her unfitness for business is increased by the affliction of deafness; and she appears sometimes to comprehend little or nothing of discussions with her or in her presence, of material import to her interest. In her household concerns only she seems to be competent and reliable; though even there she appears sometimes to have yielded her own wishes to the influence of others, not members of her family.
The elder sister appears to have a trade which she has sometimes followed. It does not appear that the younger sister or her husband have any resource beyond the land conveyed to her, and her share of her father's estate. She has now a large family of children, some of whom were born in the lifetime of the intestate. It is idle to speculate now upon what the intestate may have intended by way of will. Courts must deal with his estate as he left it. It was for him in his lifetime, not for courts then or now, to judge whether the statute of distributions makes a just division of his estate between the single woman, likely to have no one dependent on her, and the teeming wife, such as they relatively appear to be.
The appellant appears to have been dissatisfied with the judgment of the county court, but she took no appeal. She appears not long after to have taken legal advice, with some view of avoiding the effect of the judgment and of securing to herself one-half of the one hundred and twenty acres of which the intestate had been seized. She appears to have had frequent interviews with her attorney from thence until the execution of the conveyance to her which the complaint seeks to avoid. She appears to have had also frequent interviews with her sister, to have exercised great influence over the latter; constantly renewing her solicitations, and overcoming the reluctance of her sister, until she brought the latter into the belief that their existing rights to their father's estate were unequal and unjust, and that some conveyance should be made by the younger sister to the elder, to please the latter. The younger sister's great desire seems to have been to please the elder on some terms.
The younger sister insists that this was to be of twenty acres only, apparently unimproved. The elder sister insists that it was to be of sixty acres, embracing valuable improvements. It is not improbable, and it is charitable to presume, that the difference rests in misunderstanding rather than in misstatement; the younger being apparently willing to do anything to please the elder, without much understanding what it was. In the one view, the younger sister was led into consenting to give away a large advantage; in the other, to surrender all advantage which she had taken by the judgment of the county court, which appears to have been thoroughly comprehended by the elder, and not very well by the younger sister.
Both sisters were examined on their own behalf; and it is little surprising in the circumstances of the two women, though very sad to witness, that their evidence conflicts in several important particulars. The learned and able judge of the court below, who patiently heard both, appears to have put greater reliance in the testimony of the younger sister; and this court is disposed to follow him, though there are inconsistencies and incongruities in her evidence, following upon the inconsistencies and incongruities in her conduct; both not improbably to be imputed to the same cause, her weakness of mind and character.
Both concur in this, that it was agreed between...
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