Studybaker v. Cofield
| Decision Date | 12 February 1901 |
| Citation | 61 S.W. 246,159 Mo. 596 |
| Parties | STUDYBAKER et al., Appellants, v. COFIELD, et al |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Appeal from Pettis Circuit Court. -- Hon. George F. Longan, Judge.
Affirmed.
Sangree & Lamm for appellants.
(1) The ancient ear-marks and recognized indicia of undue influence moral coercion, fraud actual or constructive, surprise imposition, over-solicitation, artfulness, are present in this record and show a transaction which equity will watch with an eye of "invincible jealousy" and annul. (a) There is that superintendence of the mind, body and property of Joseph Boyer by the Cofields, creating an intimate and confidential relation which throws upon them the burden of sustaining the deed in question, and makes it presumptively void. (b) There is an aged man beyond four score, childish of wandering and unsound mind, clouded by the shadows of impending dissolution, racked with disease and on his death bed, who strips himself by an irrevocable grant of practically all of a considerable estate, by a deed drawn in advance with suspicious care by the Cofields' lawyer and dictated wholly by them, signed privately without the intervention of independent legal advice, or advice of other disinterested persons, and under circumstances indicating haste and design, a "catching" bargain. (c) There are the hopes and fears of the dying man played upon, deception as to his favorite nephew's (Edgar's) death, the sudden revulsion of Joseph Boyer's settled intentions about the disposition of his property, the failure to notify the other relatives by the Cofields, the grossly inadequate and simulated considerations elaborately expressed in the deed, which, with his impaired mind and physical feebleness, raise a "vehement presumption" of a species of fraud and undue influence. (d) And there is the strong anxiety of the Cofields about the property and the disposition of it, the doubt and solicitude as to Mr. Boyer's mental capacity in the minds of those participating in the secret, ex parte and inadequate investigation at the time of signing the deed, which cast suspicion upon the deed and the conduct of the Cofields, and show the deed was not the spontaneous act of Joseph Boyer, but was pressed upon him and was the product of the Cofields' suggestions and management. Many of the foregoing facts separately (and, a fortiori, all combined) show that the court below erred, and bring our contention within the following authorities. Turner v. Turner, 44 Mo. 535; Cadwallader v. West, 48 Mo. 483; Garvin v. Williams, 44 Mo. 465; Yosti v. Laughran, 49 Mo. 594; Street v. Goss, 62 Mo. 226; McClure v. Lewis, 72 Mo. 314; Holliway v. Holliway, 77 Mo. 392; Bogie v. Noland, 96 Mo. 85; Rankin v. Patton, 65 Mo. 378; Martin v. Baker, 135 Mo. 495; Dingman v. Romine, 141 Mo. 466; Thompson v. Ish, 99 Mo. 160; Gay v. Gilliam, 92 Mo. 250; Hall v. Knappenberger, 97 Mo. 509; Hamilton v. Armstrong, 120 Mo. 597; Harding v. Handy, 11 Wheaton, 125. (2) There is a distinction in the cases between a deed and a will and it requires greater mental capacity to sustain an irrevocable grant by deed (a bargain between two -- a weak mind and a strong one) than it does to sustain a will (a one-sided instrument and revocable). Jackson v. Hardin, 83 Mo. 175; Brinkman v. Rueggesick, 71 Mo. 553; Von De Veld v. Judy, 143 Mo. 348. (3) If, in this court, Elmira Cofield claims to hold the land as a gift, this she may not do in the face of the allegations in her answer and in the face of the deed setting forth the consideration for the conveyance. Cadwallader v. West, 48 Mo. 483; Hall v. Knappenberger, 97 Mo. 509.
Barnett & Barnett for respondents.
(1) In this case the evidence was all oral and the trial court saw the witnesses, and observed their manner and demeanor on the stand. The evidence was contradictory. The court could not accept the evidence of all the witnesses as true. Some of the testimony on the part of plaintiff was absolutely irreconcilable with the testimony of defendant's witnesses. The trial court possessed superior advantages in weighing the evidence and passing on the credibility of the witnesses. And in determining questions of fact and the credibility of the witnesses in such a case, the Supreme Court will defer much to the findings of the lower court and not reverse the case unless satisfied that such findings are against the preponderance of the evidence. Mathias v. O'Neill, 94 Mo. 530; Short v. Taylor, 137 Mo. 525; Bushong v. Taylor, 82 Mo. 666; Erskine v. Lowenstein, 82 Mo. 309; Chapman v. McIlwrath, 77 Mo. 43; Chouteau v. Allen, 70 Mo. 366; Springer v. Kleinsorge, 83 Mo. 159; Snell v. Harrison, 83 Mo. 658; Johnson v. Duer, 115 Mo. 336; Hendricks v. Woods, 79 Mo. 599; Bank v. Murray, 88 Mo. 196; Parker v. Roberts, 116 Mo. 667. This is especially true where there is a material conflict of evidence. Springer v. Kleinsorge, 83 Mo. 159; Chouteau v. Allen, 70 Mo. 306; Mathias v. O'Neill, 94 Mo. 530; Erskine v. Lowenstein, 82 Mo. 309; Hendricks v. Woods, 79 Mo. 599; Parker v. Roberts, 116 Mo. 667. (2) Joseph Boyer was capable of making the deed in question, as he understood the nature and effect of the transaction. The mere fact that his mind may have been impaired by age or disease did not render him incompetent to make the conveyance. Cutler v. Zollinger, 117 Mo. 92; Pennington v. Stanton, 125 Mo. 658; McKissock v. Groom, 148 Mo. 459; Fulbright v. Perry Co., 145 Mo. 432; Cutts v. Young, 147 Mo. 687; Dickson v. Kempinsky, 96 Mo. 252; Keithley v. Keithley, 85 Mo. 217. The fact that deceased had at times delusions or hallucinations did not render him incapable of contracting, unless such delusions related to the subject-matter, and existed at the very time of the execution of the contract. Cutler v. Zollinger, 117 Mo. 102. (3) The burden is on plaintiffs on the issue of undue influence, and there is not a particle of evidence to sustain the allegation that defendants used over-persuasion or undue influence to obtain the execution of the deed in question. McKissock v. Groom, 148 Mo. 459; Aylward v. Briggs, 145 Mo. 605; Riley v. Sherwood, 144 Mo. 354; Keithley v. Keithley, 85 Mo. 217; Scott v. Scott, 95 Mo. 300. The deed was always in possession of defendants, and was produced in court by them.
This is a suit in equity by the collateral heirs of Joseph Boyer, deceased, to set aside a deed made by him a few days before his death to his niece, the defendant Elmira Cofield, on the ground that he was of unsound mind when he made the deed, and was induced to make it through her undue influence.
The deceased was eighty-five years old, had never married, and at his death left as his heirs two sisters, Catherine Tarman, one of the plaintiffs, and Susan Black, one of the defendants, and seventeen nieces and nephews, children of deceased brothers and sisters, all of whom are plaintiffs except the defendant Elmira Cofield; the sister Susan Black, who was one of the defendants, was the mother of Elmira, and has died since this suit was begun. The deed assaulted conveys a farm of about 200 acres in Pettis county, which was the bulk of his property, to defendant Elmira. His estate was solvent, although the personalty amounted to only a few hundred dollars. He died intestate. The deed reserves in the grantor the use, possession, rents, and profits of the land for life. The consideration expressed is ten dollars cash, love and affection, and the obligation of the grantee to maintain and support her mother, the grantor's sister, Susan Black, during her life. The petition charges that the deed was made (or essayed to be made) "when his mind had become so impaired by the accumulated ravages of age and disease that he was not capable of contracting or of intelligently transacting business;" that it was "procured and brought about by the selfish and wrongful entreaties, solicitations, machinations" of Elmira and her husband, who "were at the time the only relatives and confidential advisers of said Joseph Boyer in attendance on him and nursing him, and they wrongfully contrived by their position as relatives and nurses, and confidential advisers and their arts and blandishments, to obtain and assert an unfair and selfish domination and undue influence over his feeble will-power, to the detriment of the absent heirs and to the gain of said Elmira and her mother Susan Black, and by such unfair and selfish domination and undue influence and by said solicitations, entreaties and blandishments and consulting and advising him thereto, thus procured the deed; that it was not the act and deed of Joseph Boyer, but that of Elmira and her husband, obtained through those influences and by prejudicing him against his other relatives, the plaintiffs herein, who resided in distant States." There were no specifications in the petition demonstrative of those charges, but they were denied by the answer.
The evidence showed that Joseph Boyer was an old bachelor who for the last twenty-five years or more of his life had lived in Pettis county without the society of any of his relatives, who lived in other States, Ohio, Illinois and Iowa. There was nothing very peculiar about his habits or character to distinguish him from an ordinary recluse of that kind. He was a man of usual intelligence, attended to his own business and grew old with habits formed and hardened under the somewhat arid conditions that ordinarily environ the life of an old bachelor.
One of plaintiff's witnesses, Davidson, who was a hired man on the farm, in conversation with Boyer, casually said that he had come from Tama county, Iowa, whereupon the old man said that he had relatives living in that county and named Edgar Boyer his nephew, whom he said he wanted to come and take...
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