Brandt v. Phipps

• Citation: 75 N.E.2d 757,398 Ill. 296
• Decision Date: 20 November 1947
• Docket Number: No. 30218.,30218.
• Parties: BRANDT v. PHIPPS.
• Court: Supreme Court of Illinois

398 Ill. 296

75 N.E.2d 757

BRANDT

v.PHIPPS.

No. 30218.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 20, 1947.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Kankakee County; Roscoe C. South, judge.

Action by Peter Brandt, individually and as executor of the will of Elizabeth Brandt, deceased, against O. A. Phipps to set aside an executor's deed and a quitclaim deed executed by plaintiff as an heir. From so much of decree as relates to setting aside quitclaim deed, defendant appeals, and plaintiff cross-appeals from decretal order sustaining defendant's motion to dismiss complaint as to plaintiff as executor.

Decree affirmed.

Harry S. Streeter, Vernon G. Butz, and John H. Beckers, all of Kankakee, for appellant.

Eva L. Minor and Dyer & Dyer, all of Kankakee, for appellees.

WILSON, Justice.

The plaintiff, Peter Brandt, individually and as executor of the will of Elizabeth Brandt, deceased, commenced this action in the circuit court of Kankakee County on January 30, 1945, to set aside two deeds to the defendant, O. A. Phipps. Of the instruments involved, the first is an executor's deed, dated August 7, 1940, given by plaintiff as executor of the will of Elizabeth Brandt, conveying to defendant 105 acres of unimproved farm land in Kankakee County, known locally as the Elizabeth Brandt farm. By the second conveyance, dated August 31, 1940, plaintiff, in his individual capacity as one of the heirs-at-law of Elizabeth Brandt, quitclaimed to defendant all his interest in the Elizabeth Brandt farm. Plaintiff seeks a rescission on the ground that he was mentally incompetent when he executed the deeds. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the complaint as to Peter Brandt, executor. The motion was taken under advisement and the cause proceeded to a hearing before the chancellor. Upon the close of all the evidence, the chancellor ruled that, under the will of Elizabeth Brandt, plaintiff, as executor, took only a power to sell the farm and, not having been exercised within a reasonable time, the power to sell was thereby abandoned and lost. Title to the real estate having descended to the heirs-at-law and, in addition, plaintiff having been discharged as executor and the estate closed in 1941, plaintiff, as executor, was not deemed to have any legal standing to attack the executor's deed. The chancellor further found that plaintiff was mentally incompetent at the time he executed the quitclaim deed. The parties were adjudged to be tenants in common, plaintiff owning an undivided one-fifth interest in the farm and defendant owning an undivided four-fifths interest by virtue of quitclaim deeds from the other heirs-at-law of Elizabeth Brandt. By the terms of the decree, defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint as to plaintiff, as executor, was allowed and the quitclaim deed set aside, conditioned on plaintiff's repayment to defendant of one fifth of the purchase price and subject to an accounting for rents, profits and taxes. Defendant prosecutes a direct appeal to this court from so much of the decree as relates to setting aside the quitclaim deed. Plaintiff's cross appeal is directed to the part of the decretal order sustaining defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint as to plaintiff, as executor. Title to real estate being at issue, a freehold is necessarily involved.

Plaintiff is a farmer with very little formal education. His farm adjoins the Elizabeth Brandt farm to the east. Defendant, the owner of several farms in Kankakee County, is a practicing physician and surgeon. Elizabeth Brandt, plaintiff's mother, died testate in 1931, leaving six children as her only heirs-at-law. The will, admitted to probate on October 3, 1931, provides in pertinent part: ‘Second: * * * I direct my executor to sell and convey all of my real estate and that out of the proceeds he first pay the following legacies * * *.’ There follow specific legacies to her sons, Henry, Jacob and William, and small bequests to three grandchildren. By the third clause, the testatrix directed that the balance remaining after payment of the specific legacies should be distributed among her five children, Henry, Peter, Jacob, Marie (Richmond) and Annie (Rieman). The sixth child, William, was not included among the residuary legatees. The 105 acres of farm land constituted the only important asset of the estate. Henry Brandt qualified as executor in 1931 and so acted until his death in 1933. Plaintiff, successor executor under the will, was substituted as executor on August 19, 1933.

Following a case of blood poisoning in October, 1936, plaintiff became extremely depressed and suffered from insomnia. Early in December, 1936, plaintiff consulted defendant, who examined him and prescribed rest and sedatives. Plaintiff's condition did not improve and it was arranged through defendant to have him committed to the Kankakee State Hospital as a voluntary patient. Plaintiff entered the hospital January 2, 1937. Discharged on February 24, 1937, he remained home only one month until his commitment to the Manteno State Hospital, which he entered as a voluntary patient on March 24, 1937. There the diagnosis was involutional melancholia, described as a mental disorder occurring in both men and women during the period of change of life. It is characterized chiefly by disturbances in the mood or emotions of the individual. The depression of the emotions may be accompanied by exhausting agitation, insomnia, self-abnegation, hallucinations nd abnormal ideas regarding the body. Frequently, the patient develops the idea that life is not worth living. Because it is primarily a mood disease and does not ordinarily result in the deterioration of the mental faculties, the patient has a fair chance of recovery.

Excerpts from the hospital records based on actual observation of plaintiff's mental and physical behavior disclose that plaintiff exhibited all the symptoms of involutional melancholia. As to plaintiff's condition prior to his admission to the hospital, his wife testified that he wanted to kill himself, that he had to be restrained from carrying out an expressed desire to jump from a windmill, that he was very untidy, would not shave, let his hair grow, would soil his clothes instead of going to the toilet, and that he did not work nor handle money matters.

Plaintiff was first discharged from Manteno State Hospital in August, 1938. Recommitted to the same hospital only one month later, it was not until February 15, 1940, that plaintiff was again discharged. At the time his condition was described as ‘some better.’ After he had been at home for approximately six months, plaintiff was committed to Manteno State Hospital for the third and last time. Readmitted on August 27, 1940, he underwent a series of metrazol shock treatments commencing October 21, 1940, and was discharged as improved on December 30, 1940. While under treatment at public institutions, plaintiff was at all times a voluntary patient and has never been judicially declared insane.

The negotiations leading up to the sale of the Elizabeth Brandt farm took place in the late spring of 1940. Plaintiff's sister, Marie Richmond, was the moving figure in the decision to sell. Plaintiff took no part in the proceedings. Calling upon defendant in his professional capacity, Mrs. Richmond casually mentioned the farm was for sale and defendant offered to purchase it and the 1940 crops for $90 an acre. Apparently, the heirs agreed to accept the offer on June 5, 1940, at a meeting to which they were called by A. L. Granger, the attorney for the estate, because shortly thereafter Granger prepared a contract of sale. Plaintiff's wife was present at the meeting. In addition to an attorney, defendant employed Francis Smith, a real-estate broker, to attend to the details of the sale for him for a consideration of $50. To Smith was delegated the task of obtaining the necessary signatures to the contract of sale, the executor's deed and the various quitclaim deeds. The contract of sale was dated June 25, 1940. Smith, appearing as a witness for plaintiff, testified that he first had Marie Richmond and her husband sign the contract and then took it to plaintiff's wife who agreed to sign it herself and have plaintiff sign. Two or three days later, according to Smith, the signed contract was returned to him. The contract of sale, as it appears in the record, is signed by plaintiff, alone. Tillie Brandt, plaintiff's wife, testified that plaintiff tore up the first contract and that it was necessary for Smith to provide a second contract which her husband signed without reading and without her informing him as to the nature of the instrument. The above is fairly typical of all the evidence relating to the sale of the farm.

Although the executor's deed and the quitclaim deed are dated August 7 and August 31, respectively, and plaintiff did not re-enter the hospital until August 27, Smith testified that plaintiff executed both deeds while at the hospital, that they were signed on two separate occasions about a month apart, and that both were signed several weeks after the date of notarization. The chancellor found the facts to be as stated by Smith, and we agree that this is the most accurate reconstruction of events to be gleaned from the record. On October 2, 1940, the county court of Kankakee County entered an order approving the contract to sell on a petition filed the same day. It does not appear that plaintiff's mental capacity was questioned on this or any other occasion during the probate proceedings.

As to plaintiff's mental condition during the summer of 1940, his wife testified that he never left the farm, neither worked nor conducted any business transactions, was untidy in his dress, failed to shave or have his hair cut, continued to soil his clothes, once went to the knife drawer with the announced intention of killing himself, frequently said he wished he had not been born and would rather be dead, and entertained gloomy forebodings of...