Gifford v. Corrigan

• Decision Date: 19 April 1887
• Citation: 105 N.Y. 223,11 N.E. 498
• Parties: GIFFORD, Receiver, etc., v. CORRIGAN, Sole Ex'r, etc., impleaded.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

105 N.Y. 223

11 N.E. 498

GIFFORD, Receiver, etc.,

v.CORRIGAN, Sole Ex'r, etc., impleaded.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 19, 1887.

Ralph E. Prime, for appellant.

E. C. Boardman, for respondent.

ANDREWS, J.

The defendant McCloskey, in his verified answer, denied that he entered into the covenant of assumption contained in the deed executed by McEvoy, and alleged that the deed was made and executed without his knowledge, and that it was never delivered to or accepted by him. The parties proceeded to trial upon the issue so presented, and the other issues in the case. The plaintiff put in evidence from the register's office in Westchester county the record of a deed dated May 8, 1878, recorded May 10, 1878, from McEvoy to the defendant McCloskey, purporting to convey to ‘John McCloskey, archbishop of New York,’ for the nominal consideration of one dollar, the mortgaged premises and a lot adjacent thereto, which deed contained a covenant on the part of the grantee to assume and pay the principal sum of $3,900 on the mortgage, with interest from January 9, 1869. The deed was executed by the grantor alone. The plaintiff rested his case against the defendant McCloskey solely upon the record. The case is bare of any circumstance or evidence showing or tending to show that the defendant McCloskey had any knowledge or information of the existence of the deed, or, indeed, of the existence of the mortgaged property, prior to the commencement of the action, or that he was ever in possession, or that he ever had any conversation or negotiation with any one in respect to the property. There is no evidence who put the deed upon record, or how it came to be recorded. The bare fact of the record is all that appears connecting the defendant McCloskey with the transaction. The grantor, McEvoy, died before the commencement of the action, and the defendant McCloskey a few months after the trial.

In determining the question whether the plaintiff made out a prima facie case of the delivery to and acceptance of the deed by the grantee, certain other facts need to be noticed. McEvoy was a Roman Catholic priest. He acquired title to the mortgaged property in 1870 from the trustees of the Father Matthew Temperance Benefit Society of Tuckahoe, a society incorporated under the act of April 12, 1848, for the incorporation of benevolent, charitable, scientific, and missionary societies. The conveyance of the property by the society to McEvoy was made under the order of the court, which authorized the conveyance to be made to him ‘for the use of the Roman Catholic Church, or the people of Tuckahoe,’ and the deed referred to the order as the authority under which it was executed. It appeared by the petition upon which the order was granted that the society was unable to pay the mortgage, and that the value of the premises did not exceed the amount due thereon. The plaintiff, to maintain his claim that the deed from McEvoy to McCloskey was delivered and accepted, invokes the presumption that a party has accepted a benefit attempted to be conferred upon him, and that the record of a deed beneficial to the grantee is prima facie evidence of its delivery. The property was conveyed to McEvoy for church purposes; and it cannot be doubted that, in executing a deed to the defendant McCloskey, it was his intention to vest the title in him as archbishop for the same purposes, whatever may be the legal effect of his conveyance, and not to vest in his grantee a personal beneficial interest in the property. It is well known that the title to church property in the Roman Catholic Church is frequently vested in the bishop. This tends to explain a transaction which would otherwise be peculiar, and how McEvoy may have executed a deed of the land to his ecclesiastical superior without his knowledge.

The ground of the presumption, from the bare record of a deed, that it has been delivered and accepted, wholly fails in this case. The deed was not beneficial to the grantee. The property was heavily incumbered, probably to its full value. As has been stated, there is no evidence of any possession under the deed, or of any prior contract or negotiation between the parties, or of any knowledge in fact on the part of the grantee of the existence of the conveyance. In most of the cases where delivery of a deed has been sought to be established without proof of the actual fact, there are circumstances which support the presumption of a delivery, in addition to the bare record of the deed. We are of the opinion that, under the circumstances of this case, a delivery cannot be presumed from the record alone, and that the conclusion of the general term upon this point was correct. See Jackson v. Phipps, 12 Johns. 418;Jackson v. Bodle, 20 Johns. 184;Church v....