Bauer v. Bauer

• Citation: 33 A. 643,82 Md. 241
• Parties: BAUER ET AL. v. BAUER ET AL.
• Decision Date: 08 January 1896
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

33 A. 643

82 Md. 241

BAUER ET AL. v. BAUER ET AL.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 8, 1896

Appeal from circuit court of Baltimore city.

Bill by Lawrence F. Bauer and others against John W. Bauer administrator, and others, to set aside certain instruments made by Elizabeth Bauer as having been obtained by undue influence. From a decree for complainants, defendants appeal. Reversed.

Argued before ROBINSON, C.J., and BRYAN, McSHERRY, FOWLER, ROBERTS BRISCOE, and BOYD, JJ.

Thomas S. Baer and J. W. Morrison, for appellants.

M. N Packard and C. C. Rhodes, for appellees.

BRISCOE J.

This appeal is taken from a decree of the circuit court of Baltimore city vacating a deed to the defendants of a house on Baltimore street, dated the 10th of November, 1891, and a bill of sale to two of the defendants of certain personal property, dated the 19th of December, 1891. The bill was dismissed as to a deed to two of the defendants of three small houses on Lemon street, dated the 12th of May, 1891 and from this part of the decree no appeal has been taken. The bill is filed by a brother and sister against a brother and two sisters, and charges that the grantor, the mother of the parties, was incompetent to make a valid deed or contract, and that the conveyances were obtained by fraud and undue influence exercised by the defendants. All of these allegations are specifically denied by the answers. The undisputed facts show that the grantor in the deeds was an old woman, 74 years of age, and suffering from a cancer, which had been pronounced incurable by her physicians, and from which she died on the 11th of January, 1892. She was unmarried at the time of her death, and left seven children and several grandchildren surviving her, all of whom, except the defendants, had left her house shortly after becoming of age, and only two of whom, a son and daughter, are parties plaintiff to this suit. She conducted a store and a scouring establishment, and the property had been acquired by the joint labor of herself and the defendants. She gave to her two daughters, who were unmarried, the three houses on Lemon street, estimated to be worth $1,200, and the furniture and store fixtures, worth $150. The Baltimore street house, which she had purchased in 1868 for $3,500, she gave to the three defendants equally. There were no exceptions to the large mass of evidence in the record, although much of it has no material bearing upon the case.

It is insisted on the part of the appellees that the relations existing between the grantor and grantees, at the time of the execution of the deeds, were of such a character as requires the application of the equitable doctrine applied to gifts between persons standing in a confidential and fiduciary relation to each other. It is well-settled law that a gift or voluntary conveyance between parties standing in the confidential relation of child to parent is prima facie void and can only be upheld upon proof that it was the free, voluntary, and unbiased act of the person making it. Whitridge v. Whitridge, 76 Md. 54, 24 A. 645. This is so, because a child is presumed to be under the control of parental influence as long as the dominion of the parent lasts, and while that dominion exists it lies on the parent, maintaining the gift, to disprove the exercise of parental influence by proof that the child had independent advice or in some other way. But a voluntary conveyance of property from a parent to a child rests upon a different principle, and is not prima facie void. It turns, says Mr. Pomeroy, in his work upon Equity Jurisprudence, upon the exercise of actual undue influence, and not upon any presumption of invalidity. A gift from parent to child is certainly not presumed to be invalid. 2 Pom. Eq. Jur. § 1399. If, however, the confidential relation is shown by competent proof to exist, then the burden is imposed upon the grantee to show that the transaction was a righteous one. In Eakle v....