Caspari v. First German Church of the New Jerusalem

• Decision Date: 06 June 1882
• Citation: 12 Mo.App. 293
• Parties: ELIZABETH CASPARI, Respondent, v. THE FIRST GERMAN CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

12 Mo.App. 293

ELIZABETH CASPARI, Respondent,

v.THE FIRST GERMAN CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, Appellant.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Jun. 6, 1882.

1. A gift made through the solicitation of one sustaining confidential relations to the donor must be free from the least taint of fraud.

2. A presumption of fraud arises from the existence of confidential relations between the donor and the donee.

3. It is incumbent on a donee who sustains confidential relations to the donor to show that the donor had competent, disinterested advice.

4. A gift disproportioned to her means, made by an aged widow, to a church, at the solicitation of the pastor thereof, who was also the donor's spiritual and business adviser, without disinterested advice from others, upon the condition, subsequently repudiated by the donee, that she was to receive interest thereon during her life, will, at her suit, be set aside.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court, ADAMS, J.

Affirmed.

KEHR & TITTMANN, for the appellant: Advice, persuasion, or entreaty does not constitute undue influence, and will not vitiate a gift made freely and from conviction of its propriety, though such gift might never have been made but for such advice, persuasion, or entreaty.-- Howe v. Howe, 99 Mass. 99; Children's Aid Society v. Loveridge, 70 N. Y. 394; Gardiner v. Gardiner, 34 N. Y. 155; Breck v. Breck, 66 N. Y. 144; Barnes v. Barnes, 66 Me. 297; Brown v. Molliston, 3 Whart. 129; Zimmerman v. Zimmerman, 23 Pa. St. 375; Thompson v. Keyner, 65 Pa. St. 368; Daniel v. Hill, 52 Ala. 430; Joe v. McCord, 74 Ill. 44; Miller v. Miller, 3 Serg. & R. 267; Tawney v. Long, 76 Pa. St. 106; Rall v. Graham, 43 Ind. 1; Sutton v. Sutton, 5 Kan. 459; McDaniel v. Crosby, 19 Ark. 533. Assuming that the relation of spiritual adviser and advisee existed between the plaintiff and the pastor at the time of the gift to the church, the plaintiff claims that the gift must be presumed to be invalid under the rule of evidence established by the following Missouri cases.-- Garvin v. Williams, 44 Mo. 465; s. c. 50 Mo. 206; Cadwallader v. West, 48 Mo. 483; Yosti v. Laughran, 49 Mo. 594; Street v. Gross, 62 Mo. 228; Ranken v. Patton, 65 Mo. 378; Bradshaw v. Yates, 67 Mo. 228; Ford v. Hennessey, 70 Mo. 580; Miller v. Simmonds, 5 Mo. App. 33. To enable the congregation to buy the new church building, plaintiff did in advance what she had at all times intended to do at her death. She made the gift to take effect immediately, instead of postponing it to the time of her death.-- Bowles v. Wathan, 54 Mo. 261. The church contends that it never made a promise to pay interest, although such was the understanding between the plaintiff and Dr. Carriere. The interest clause was left out of the deed of gift by her consent; the obligation, if any, is, therefore, a moral, and not a legal obligation. But treating it as a legal obligation, the failure to comply with the promise does not avoid the gift.-- McKane's Executor v. Bonner, 1 Bailey, 113; Fonty v. Fonty, 34 Ind. 133; Long v. Woodman, 58 Mo. 49-53; Hazlett v. Burge, 22 Iowa, 535; Gallagher v. Brunell, 6 Cow. 346; Gage v. Lewis, 68 Ill. 616; The State v. Pruther, 44 Ind. 287; Schaeffer v. Muenchen, 7 Mo. App. 563.

BRECK JONES, for the respondent: The relation which the person at whose solicitation the gift in this case was made, sustained to the donor, raises a presumption of fraud.-- Ormand v. Hutchison, 13 Ves. Jr. 47; Hatch v. Hatch, 9 Ves. Jr. 292; Huguenin v. Baseley, 14 Ves. Jr. 299 (leading case); Harvey v. Mount, 8 Beav. 452; Welles v. Middleton, 1 Cox, C. C. 112, 125; Meek v. Perry, 36 Miss. 190. The presumption is stronger in the case of a minister of religion than in any other of the confidential relations.--Sir Samuel Romilly's reply in Huguenin v. Baseley, supra; Adams' Eq. 184; Norton v. Reilly, 2 Eden, 286; Nachtrieb v. Harmony Settlement, 3 Wall. Jr. 56. This presumption throws upon the donee the burden of showing, by the clearest evidence, that the gift was the deliberate offspring of the donor's own unbiased mind, and flowed from a free and uninfluenced volition.-- Harvey v. Sullens, 46 Mo. 147; Cadwallader v. West, 48 Mo. 502; Garvin v. Williams, 50 Mo. 206; Greenfield Estate, 14 Pa. St. 489; 1 Story's Eq. Jur., sect. 311. The gift was improvident.-- Dent v. Bennett, 4 Myl. & Cr. 273. And was made without having disinterested advice.-- Cadwallader v. West, 48 Mo. 483; Ford v. Hennessey, 70 Mo. 580. The donor was aged and infirm.-- Anderson v. Elsworth, 3 Giff. 154. The deed of gift made a false recital as to consideration.-- Heever v. Wyatt, 3 Bro. C. C. 156; Gibson v. Russell, 2 You. & C. 204; Shark v. Leach, 31 Beav. 49. It matters not that the pastor did not receive the benefit of the gift. Whoever received it took it tainted and infected with the undue influence and imposition of the person procuring it.-- Yost v. Laughran, 49 Mo. 599; Ranken v Patton, 65 Mo. 387; Ford v. Hennessey, supra. When the point is fully discussed, the acquiescence of the donor is of no importance, while her situation remains unchanged.-- Hatch v. Hatch, 9 Ves. 292; Yowland v. DeFaria, 18 Ves. 20.

THOMPSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a suit in equity to set aside a deed of gift made by the plaintiff to the church of which she was a member. The church in question is an incorporated religious society known as the First German Church of the New Jerusalem. At the time of the making of the gift, the plaintiff was a widow about seventy-two years of age, infirm in body and feeble in mind, though she had been a person of good intelligence. She had long been a member of this particular religious denomination, and of this particular society. In fact, it was organized in her house some forty years ago, soon after she came to this country from Germany, and during the first year of its existence, the little congregation used her house as their place of worship. The evidence tends to show that she was greatly attached to the church, and that she and her husband had for some time contemplated making a donation to it. Their family consisted, prior to the death of the husband, of husband and wife, and three sons of the husband by a former marriage. One of these sons, the eldest, was dissipated, and, at the time of the trial, was still dependent upon his aged step-mother for his support. The other two were able to take care of themselves, though, we infer, they were not well thought of by their father; for he died leaving a will in which he disinherited all three by bequeathing them $1 each. We say “disinherited,” but this expression should be taken with the qualification that, so far as the evidence shows, he left no property upon which his will could have operated. The only specific bequest contained in this will was the sum of $3,000 to his wife, the present plaintiff, to be enjoyed by her during her life time, and, at her death, to go to the defendant church. The residue of his property was devised to his wife and to her heirs and assigns, without any limitation or condition. This will was executed in the year 1872, and he died in the year 1875. It seems that he died leaving substantially nothing. Nothing came from him to the plaintiff under the will, out of which the church could hope to realize the bequest of $3,000 after her death.”

Mrs. Caspari, however, had long contemplated leaving a legacy to the church; and this desire on her part will explain the peculiar circumstances of his leaving such a will, having no property on which it could operate. Mrs. Caspari and her husband had, it seems, agreed with each other so to make their wills as to leave $3,000 to the church; and, in their ignorance of the law, as we are bound to infer, they supposed that the proper way in which to do this, was for Mrs. Caspari to leave a legacy to him of $3,000, in her will, and for him in his will to bequeath it back to her for her life, remainder to the church; and it seems that such wills were made. But this arrangement was broken into by the circumstance that Mr. Caspari died first, so that he left nothing on which his will could operate. When Mr. Caspari died, Mr. Gustave Morgens, also a member of the church, became Mrs. Caspari's confidential business adviser. Fears now arose on the part of the pastor and some of the leading members of the church, that in case Mrs. Caspari should die, the money would be lost to the church. So the pastor went to see her about it, and she told him that it was all right; that she and Mr. Morgens had arranged the matter. He also went to see Mr. Morgens, who told him that the necessary steps to secure the bequest to the church had been taken. Trusting in this, they gave themselves no further concern about the matter until Mr. Morgens died, when it was found that nothing had been done to secure the bequest to the church.

When Mr. Morgens died, the pastor became Mrs. Caspari's business adviser. Such matters of business as she could attend to herself, such as paying taxes, receiving rents, and the like, she attended to in person; but, as she could not write in English, when it became necessary to write receipts, he wrote them for her. He also took charge of and kept her chief papers relating to her property, and he testifies that in business matters she generally followed his advice.

The discovery of the fact that Mr. Morgens had died without taking steps to secure the bequest to the church, stimulated the pastor to persuade Mrs. Caspari to put her intended bequest into the form of a promissory note; he thinking, that if it were done in that way, her heirs would be less likely to succeed in setting it aside, than in case it should take the form of a provision in her will. Moreover, it was no doubt thought that, if she should make it as a bequest in her will, the influence of her step-children, or other circumstances which might arise, might induce her to revoke it. It was, therefore, thought desirable to put it in the form of an...