Boyles v. Cora
| Decision Date | 24 November 1942 |
| Docket Number | No. 45745.,45745. |
| Parties | BOYLES v. CORA. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
BOYLES
v.
CORA.
No. 45745.
Supreme Court of Iowa.
Nov. 24, 1942.
Appeal from District Court, Appanoose County; Heinrich C. Taylor, Judge.
A suit in equity to set aside, and cancel of record, a deed of plaintiff's deceased husband conveying a farm to the defendant. Defendant appealed from a decree granting the relief prayed for. The decree is affirmed.
Affirmed.
MITCHELL, J., dissenting.
Superseding opinion in 230 Iowa 1057, 300 N.W. 281.
[6 N.W.2d 402]
W. B. Hays and C. W. Howell, both of Centerville, for appellant.
George A. Milani, of Centerville, for appellee.
BLISS, Justice.
An opinion in this cause was filed October 14, 1941 (see notation in 230 Iowa 1057), and is found in 300 N.W. 281. It reversed the trial court. A rehearing was granted and on resubmission the decree of the trial court is affirmed, and this opinion is substituted for the aforesaid opinion.
On August 18, 1939, S. G. Boyles, the husband of the plaintiff, executed and delivered to the defendant a deed to a farm of 240 acres in Appanoose County, Iowa, which deed was recorded the same day. No copy of the deed appears in the record, and we are not informed of the consideration recited therein. There is evidence that the grantor reserved a life interest. The grantee was not related to the grantor by blood or by marriage. The grantor died on January 7, 1940, intestate and without issue, leaving plaintiff as his surviving spouse.
Plaintiff's petition alleged: that the plaintiff did not join in, nor have any knowledge of the execution of the deed; that the grantor at the time of its execution was of unsound mind and sick and had been sick for a long time, and his sickness and age and other ailments and diseases were such as to weaken his mind and produce mental disturbances to the extent that he was incapable of understanding and appreciating what he was doing and the consequences of his act; that the defendant took advantage of his weakened physical and mental condition, and by playing up to, and ministering to, his passions, obtained undue influence over him, which she exercised to procure said deed in fraud of the plaintiff, his heirs and creditors; that the consideration paid by the defendant was wholly inadequate and unconscionable.
Defendant by her answer admitted the relationship of plaintiff to the grantor, but denied all other allegations. The court found generally for the plaintiff.
The appellant, as grounds for reversal, urges that there was no showing of: (1) mental incapacity; (2) undue influence; (3) lack of consideration, and (4) no offer to restore the status of defendant.
Before discussing these propositions separately, a statement of matters in general, pertinent to all of these propositions, will be helpful.
S. G. Boyles, sometimes called “Stan” in the record, was approximately 66 years old at his death in January, 1940. The plaintiff
[6 N.W.2d 403]
married him when she was 17 years old and that relationship continued until his death 43 years later. He had no property when they married, but by their combined efforts they acquired over 500 acres of Iowa farm land. Both of them worked hard. The plaintiff did her part, not only in housework, but in the fields, and about the farm buildings. She milked, and made butter, and attended to the poultry and eggs. Her husband was a good farmer. He was industrious and a shrewd dealer. He kept the buildings and other improvements on the farms in good repair. He raised, bought and fed cattle for the market and made money at it. In those days, as one witness put it, “he always had stock, and corn in the crib.” He had always been a user of intoxicating liquor, but his excesses in that respect, during the years of which we are speaking, had not been so frequent. During that period, there is no evidence of any domestic trouble between them. During the “twenties,” he became a member of the Board of Supervisors of Appanoose County, and was in that office for six years. His downfall, according to the plaintiff, really got under way during that period. His use of intoxicants greatly increased. He neglected the farms. He was away from home much of the time. As the plaintiff testified, his associates became those with whom he would not have been seen in earlier days. He became abusive of his wife by words and blows. On many occasions, she left the home for her own protection. He accused her of intimacies with other men. He sat on the porch with a shotgun in his hands many nights watching for her alleged paramours. On one occasion, after dark, but early in the evening, a taxi driver from Centerville took the plaintiff to her home. With the driver was a 17 year old high school boy-“but awful small,” as the driver testified. Mrs. Boyles took her packages and went to the door. It was locked and she rattled it and tried to talk to her husband, who was inside. She and the small boy then tried to open a window. Her husband then came out and gave her a “cussing,” and accused her of running around nights with men. He told the school boy to get off the place and stay off or he would kill him. He ordered the taxi driver not to bring her home any more. This same driver brought her to town many times “with her cream and eggs and left them at the Wagner Produce Company.” The plaintiff testified that while she was compelled to hire taxis, or to walk, the defendant was driving her husband about the town and country in his car, or her own. The same taxi man testified: “* * * and I have went out many nights and got her-she didn't say, but I imagine she was scared to stay there herself.” This is a conclusion, of couse, but there is competent testimony of her fear of him when drunk. On one occasion. Mr. Boyles asked the 17 year old son of one of his tenants to come to the Boyles home. This is the boy's testimony: “Well, he told me to come down there one morning, and I went down and he wasn't home and Mrs. Boyles was, and I went in to wait on him and when he come he got mad and just the same as accused me of being intimate with her. He asked me what the hell I was doing there alone with his wife and he was angry.”
Boyles was in the hospital for a few weeks in May and June, 1939, and his nurse went home with him for a few weeks. She testified: “After he returned home I was with him all of the time. He sat on the side of his bed one night because he thought there was a man in Mrs. Boyles's room. There was no one there. * * *
“Q. What did he do the next morning? A. Well, I helped him to get his bathrobe on and we walked outdoors to inspect the windows to see that they were shut.
“Q. Did you want to examine the windows? A. He did, I didn't.”
In 1932, or about that time, Boyles killed a child accidentally with his car. Plaintiff testified that from then on he began to slip and slip badly. Later he struck a woman with his car on the streets of Centerville. At some time, the record does not disclose when, his license to drive an automobile was taken from him for drunken driving, but according to the plaintiff “it was that element-this filthy, low-down element he was running around with-got his driver's license back.” In speaking of the death of the little boy, plaintiff testified: “This accident must have been about eight years ago. * * * He has never rested at night after that. He said so much that summer. * * * He woke up so much at night and he could hear the little boy hitting the door of the car-that is, behind the door handle of the car-but it was an accident and it affected him. * * * He did not rest at night and drank more frequently. * * * He would run outdoors and run out to the gate and he would look through the house to see if someone was
[6 N.W.2d 404]
there-imagine and accuse me of being with people that I never even spoke to. After the accident he did not keep up the farm and the home.”
Appellant, in support of the deed, places reliance on the fact that there was much disagreement in the Boyles' home. It is true, and it is not surprising. But, there is no evidence that the plaintiff was the cause of any lack of harmony. She instituted divorce proceedings in 1928, and at one time sued for separate maintenance. She testified: “But Mr. Boyles paid it all. He asked me to settle it, but it was his drinking and carrying around with this element that is here today.” She was bitter in her testimony, respecting the defendant and those associates whom she believed had catered to his weaknesses, but the record discloses no bitterness toward her husband. She gave him her personal care to the end. There is no worthy evidence to the contrary. The special nurse who was at the home in June, 1939, testified:
“Q. Now, was Mrs. Boyles there at home when you were there? A. Yes.
“Q. Did she try to help take care of him? A. Well not a great deal.
“Q. Did she make some efforts when you needed assistance? A. Yes.
“Q. Did he appear like he was interested in her? A. Yes.
“Q. Did she do all she could for him? A. I was his nurse and I was supposed to take care of him, and there was no need for her to do anything personal for him. She saw to it that I had the supplies to take care of him.
“Q. Did she cooperate with you? A. Very much.”
Plaintiff testified:
“Q. After he had made up his mind, once, it was almost impossible to change it? A. No, I had lots of influence over that man.
“Q. He was a man that always run his own business, nobody told him what to buy or sell? A. They did in late years. He didn't have mind enough to know what he was doing in late years. He had the mind of a child, and I took care of him as a child most of the time. I can't see what pleasure anybody had joy riding with that man.
“Q. During the last two or three years you stayed away from home? A. I did not.
“Q. The last three or four years? A. I did not because he wasn't fit to leave alone.
“* * * I observed some change in Mr. Boyles's physical condition during the last five or six years, also in his mental condition. He had three strokes and then he had...
To continue reading
Request your trial