Barron v. Reardon

• Decision Date: 11 January 1921
• Docket Number: 22.
• Citation: 113 A. 283,137 Md. 308
• Parties: BARRON v. REARDON.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

113 A. 283

137 Md. 308

BARRON v. REARDON.

No. 22.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 11, 1921

Rehearing Denied April 4, 1921.

Appeal from Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City; Walter I Dawkins, Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Suit by Joseph T. Barron, administrator of Agnes Bridget Owens deceased, against Catherine Reardon, to set aside alleged gifts made by plaintiff's intestate. Decree for defendant, and complainant appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and THOMAS, URNER, STOCKBRIDGE, ADKINS and OFFUTT, JJ.

Read A McCaffrey, of Baltimore, for appellant.

William E. Hoffman, of Baltimore, for appellee.

STOCKBRIDGE J.

This is the case of a bill filed by the administrator of Bridget Agnes Owens to have declared void and set aside certain alleged gifts made in her lifetime of deposits in savings banks, to Catherine Reardon.

The application is made for the benefit of certain nephews and nieces of Mrs. Owens, of whom there were seventeen, Mrs. Reardon being one of that number. The bill of complaint and the evidence bear both upon the mental capacity of the donor at the time when the gifts were made, and also is intended to show that the alleged gifts were procured by Mrs. Reardon from her aunt as the result of undue influence exercised over her.

At the hearing in this court the counsel for the appellant practically abandoned all question as to the mental capacity of the donor, but rested his contention upon the question of undue influence, together with the proposition that the relations between Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Reardon were such as to make the doctrine of confidential relations apply, and to place the burden of proof upon the defendant to show that the gifts of the money were the free, voluntary acts of Mrs. Owens, uninfluenced by those elements which would constitute undue influence.

It would serve no special purpose to recite in detail, or even fully abstract, the evidence of the various witnesses called upon by one side or the other, to support contentions of the opposing party, and for the present purposes it will be sufficient to briefly summarize the leading features of the evidence, as far as the same can be gathered from the large mass of contradictory testimony which was offered.

The record is rather voluminous, and much of that which was given in the way of testimony was clearly inadmissible and should have been excluded by the trial court. No motion was made at the conclusion of the testimony for the rejection of this incompetent evidence, and therefore it has been necessary for the court to carefully examine all of the evidence adduced, and from such examination to form, as best it can, its conclusion as to the real facts of the case.

At the time of her death Mrs. Owens was about 85 years of age, or a little over. Her property consisted at the time of her husband's death, some eight years prior to her own demise in 1919, of a ground rent and deposits of various sums in a number of the savings banks of Baltimore City. The ground rent mentioned was sold by Mrs. Owens, so that at the time of her death the estate consisted solely, so far as she left any estate, of these various bank deposits. The conveyance of the ground rent, and her entire capacity to make it at the times he did, is nowhere called in question.

With regard to the amount deposited in the Metropolitan Savings Bank there does not seem to be any serious question. Between 1914 and the time of her death, this account had been decreased by withdrawals, so that the balance remaining on January 24, 1919, was less than $200, and this account was finally closed by the payment by the bank, upon an order for $200, of the sum of $198.21, which was paid to the undertaker, and did not serve to discharge in full his bill.

After the death of Mrs. Owens' husband, for some three or four years she appears to have lived in different places, but in 1914, she went to live with her niece Mrs. Reardon, the defendant in this case. Subsequent to taking up this domicile Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Reardon visited various of the savings banks, and there had the accounts theretofore standing in the name of Bridget Agnes Owens, changed, and placed in their joint names and the survivor of them. This appears to have been done at the instance of Mrs. Owens.

The withdrawals made from the various banks by Mrs. Owens range in amount from $15 to $100, and were wholly or partially used in the payment of her living expenses.

We then come to the point where the withdrawals were upon orders given upon one or another of these banks for the payment of the amounts named in such orders to Mrs. Reardon, and these orders were witnessed by a Mary A. Gavin. It seems from the testimony that what took place was that a considerable number of...