Beattie v. Bower

• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: POTTER
• Citation: Beattie v. Bower, 290 Mich. 517, 287 N.W. 900 (Mich. 1939)
• Decision Date: 20 October 1939
• Docket Number: No. 46.,46.
• Parties: BEATTIE v. BOWER.

290 Mich. 517

287 N.W. 900

BEATTIE

v.BOWER.

No. 46.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Oct. 20, 1939.

Suit in equity by Stanley E. Beattie, guardian of the property of Lambert P. Bower, a mentally incompetent person, against Margaret L. Bower for cancellation of two deeds. From a decree dismissing the bill of complaint, plaintiff appeals.

Deeds set aside.

NORTH and WIEST, JJ., dissenting.Appeal from Circuit Court, Wayne County, in Chancery; Sherman D. Callender, Judge.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Stanley E. Beattie, of Detroit, in pro. per.

Arthur E. Moore, of Pontiac, for appellee.

POTTER, Justice.

Plaintiff, appointed general guardian of Lambert P. Bower, an alleged mentally incompetent person, May 12, 1938, by the probate court of Wayne county, filed the bill of complaint herein June 28, 1938, as such guardian, having been authorized so to do by the probate court of Wayne county, against Margaret L. Bower, the wife of his ward, to set aside two deeds to real estate of plaintiff's ward made and executed August 4, 1934, to defendant without consideration when plaintiff's ward was confined to an institution for insane persons, claiming such deeds were without consideration and were procured by fraud and undue influence at a time when plaintiff's ward was mentally incompetent. Defendant filed an answer denying all the material allegations contained in the bill of complaint.

July 7, 1934, defendant, as petitioner, filed an application in the probate court of Wayne county for the admission to an asylum of the alleged insane person now plaintiff's ward. She alleged in such petition that plaintiff's ward was an insane person subject to sudden fits of rage, said that people were trying to steal from him, and threatened to harm the children in the neighborhood. She further alleged in such petition that plaintiff's ward then had no estate available for his support and that the relatives of plaintiff's ward who were legally liable for his support had no estate available therefor. The petition apparently set up the names, relationships, ages and residences of the next of kin of plaintiff's ward, but they are not printed in the record. She asked that he be admitted to the Ypsilanti State Hospital or Eloise Hospital or some other suitable hospital or asylum of the State. Upon the filing of this petition, the probate court ordered Harry C. Schmidt and J. Clark Moloney, legally qualified physicians, to examine Mr. Bower as to his alleged condition. Such examination was made by such physicians and Dr. Moloney certified to the probate court under oath that on the 15th day of July, 1934, he personally examined Mr. Bower, ‘that said person is actually insane, and that the condition of said person is such as to require care and treatment in an institution for the care, custody and treatment of the insane.’ He based his report upon the following grounds:

‘We learn from the patient's wife that on one occasion in his life he suffered from epileptic seizures. His present mental disturbances are very characteristic of epileptic equivalents. Periodically he becomes psychotic. During these psychotic episodes he is very maniacal and very violent. He swears at the neighbors and on one occasion is alleged to have cornered a neighbor in the garage. While he discusses his difficulty he becomes very loud spoken and emotionally disturbed. He informs us that his next door neighbor ‘swings at him’ with some kind of an implement when he attempts to go into his own garage. He says he can hear the ‘swish’ of this implement in the garage. He feels that his enemies have caused the children in the neighborhood to annoy him. There is one ‘Italian who is particularly offensive’ to the patient. The patient states that he follows him about the neighborhood and that on one occasion he came around the corner rapidly and bumped into the patient intentionally.

‘We believe that this patient is actually psychotic and in need of institutional care. We believe that his type of psychosis is capable of permitting him to visit violence upon some innocent person.’

Dr. Schmidt certified to the probate court under oath that on July 15, 1934, he personally examined Mr. Bower and ‘that said person is actually insane, and that the condition of said person is such as to require care and treatment in an institution for the care, custody and treatment of the insane.’ He certified that he formed this opinion upon the following grounds:

‘Past history of epileptic seizures.

‘Periodically psychotic, during which he is violent and maniacal, swears violently at neighbors and children whom he thinks may be hired to disturb him. Wife states he cornered a neighbor in his garage at one time. Is loud & Loquacious during interview. Says neighbors swing at him with some kind of implement when he attempts to enter his own garage. Says he can hear the swish. Thinks his enemies have caused children to annoy him. States one ‘Italisn’ follows him about neighborhood. Nearly knocked him down on one occasion. I believe patient is psychotic and is capable of doing violence to some innocent person.'

The instruments in question were executed August 4, 1934. The deeds were procured to be prepared by defendant and, immediately upon the execution of the deeds by plaintiff's ward to defendant, Dr. Moloney took a vacation August 7 or 8, 1934. On September 24, 1934, however, he wrote to Miss Colburn, in care of the probate court of Wayne county: ‘Regarding Lambert Bower, I saw the above named patient yesterday. The summer on the farm has not corrected his psychotic disturbance. He was all right while on the furm but he becomes violently offensive to the neighbors on his return to the city. I suggest that the man be committed to Ypsilanti.’

October 2, 1934, Bower was ordered admitted to Ypsilanti State Hospital by the probate court of Wayne county and this order was based upon the original petition made in July, 1934.

At the time the original petition was filed, according to the record Mr. Bower had real estate worth approximately $7,000. That property was liable for his care, support and maintenance in the asylum. The deeds of the property were procured without consideration but were made by him to his wife August 4, 1934, and when Mr. Bower was admitted to the asylum he had no property of any kind. Obviously, the effect of the deeds may be to hinder, delay and defraud the State in the collection of its charges for the care, support and maintenance of Mr. Bower in the asylum.

The testimony of Dr. Yoder, of the Ypsilanti State Hospital, was substantially that, based upon his examination of Mr. Bower and the petition filed by Mrs. Bower on July 7, 1934, it was his opinion Bower was insane in August, 1934. Dr. Yoder testified Bower was suffering from insanity due to cerebral arteriosclerosis, a mental condition due to the hardening of the arteries of the brain; that he was suffering from a paranoid condition characterized by ideas of persecution, irritability and emotional instability; that due to the hardening of the arteries, the blood supply to the centers of thinking, reasoning and judgment was diminished and cut down and, therefore, insanity resulted. He testified that in his opinion Bower, at the time the deeds were executed, did not have sufficient mentality to intelligently execute such instruments at that time; that the mental age of the patient was childish and that he was limited in his scope of thinking and reasoning; that Bower's paranoidal condition was due exclusively to arteriosclerosis because the patient had a psychosis due to cerebral arteriosclerosis; that in this particular case, his paranoidal condition characterized by ideas of persecution was specifically the result of that arteriosclerosis; that in August, 1934, Bower was suffering from certain false beliefs which had gotten to the point where they amounted to insanity; that that was his condition at that time; that from his personal examination of Bower, he found distinct evidences of the thickening of the arteries, his face was not symmetrical, one side was lower than the other, he complained of dizziness, headaches, periods of confusion when he could not think, periods of mental instability. His testimony was based on his own physical findings, his observation of the patient's reactions, and his knowledge of the history of the case and his experience as a psychiatrist. The only testimony opposed to this was that of Dr. Moloney, who testified that after the petition was filed and he certified the patient was insance, he undertook to treat him at the Haven at the Rochester sanitarium and that he, almost miraculously, became immediately sane and rational and remained so until the deeds were procured, without consideration, stripping the ward of all his property so that he is now dumped into the lap of the State as a pauper patient.

Insanity is a broad, comprehensive and generic term, of ambiguous import, for all unsound and deranged conditions of the mind. It includes every species of organic mental derangement, whatever may be its source or cause, whether the mental condition is congenital, or the result of arrested mental development, or of the act of Providence, or of the party's own imprudence, or of religious excitement, or of physical desease, or of dissipation, or of old age, or of unknown causes, or whether it is personal or hereditary. 32 C.J. p. 594.

Insanity is defined to be a disorder of the mental faculties, more or less permanent in character, but without loss of consciousness and will. It is marked by delusions, illusions and hallucinations, by changes in character and habits, and by unreasonable and purposeless actions and language. Dorland's American Medical Dictionary, 17th Am.Ed., p. 674.

Epilepsy is defined to be a chronic functional disease characterized by fits or attacks in which there is a loss of consciousness, with a succession of tonic or clonic convulsions. Dorland's American Medical...