Brewster v. Brewster
| Decision Date | 23 June 1922 |
| Docket Number | 34597 |
| Parties | EMMA BREWSTER, Guardian, Appellant, v. GEORGE F. BREWSTER, Appellee |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
REHEARING DENIED NOVEMBER 21, 1922.
Appeal from Sioux District Court.--WILLIAM HUTCHINSON, Judge.
ACTION in equity by the guardian of Lewis Brewster, a person of unsound mind, for the cancellation of a deed executed by the ward prior to the appointment of the guardian. Upon the close of plaintiff's evidence the court sustained defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff's petition and judgment was entered in conformity to said ruling. Plaintiff appeals.
Reversed.
G. T Wellman and Herrick & Herrick, for appellant.
T. E Diamond, Klay & Klay, and Van Oosterhout & Kolyn, for appellee.
DE GRAFF, J.
On March 24, 1920 Lewis Brewster conveyed by deed a quarter section of Iowa land to his oldest son George Brewster defendant and appellee herein. Plaintiff alleges that the grantor at said time was mentally incompetent to execute the conveyance and was subject to undue influence. Contrary to the ordinary and usual procedure in a case of this character the trial court upon the conclusion of plaintiff's evidence sustained the defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff's cause of action. The record therefore contains no testimony on behalf of the defendant, and the question presented is whether the evidence introduced sustains the allegations of the petition? This cause is triable de novo in this court, and it cannot be tried in any other manner. Blough v. Van Hoorebeke, 48 Iowa 40.
The abstract filed is presumed to contain all of the evidence before the trial court and the record presented will be deemed true, if not controverted. The facts to which the testimony of the several witnesses refer are not in dispute.
The testimony shows conclusively that at the time of the trial the grantor Lewis Brewster was under permanent guardianship; that his wife Emma B. Brewster was appointed a temporary guardian of the estate of Lewis Brewster March 30, 1920, six days subsequent to the execution of the deed in question. The grantor was 81 years of age in the month of January in the year 1920. We see no purpose in setting out in detail the facts and circumstances which causes this court to reverse the lower court. The record itself must be read in cases of this character to understand clearly the strength of mind in him whose act is attempted to be impeached.
We recognize that there is an infinite diversity of minds, both sound and unsound, and the law does not fix a line of demarcation nor does it declare that on one side is normalcy and on the other abnormality.
The cancellation of a solemn instrument invokes an extraordinary remedy and courts are not inclined to grant such relief except on evidence that is clear, satisfactory and convincing. Old age with its attending physical infirmities and feeble intellect is not in itself sufficient, nor does any presumption arise from this fact alone that undue influence has been exerted by him against whom complaint is lodged, nor does it presumptively make invalid an instrument sought to be set aside. In order to establish either undue influence or mental incapacity the evidence must prove something more than old age and the eccentricities which are oftentimes incident thereto. Had the instant case been triable to a jury, wherein the validity of a will was in question, would the trial court have been warranted under the evidence in directing a verdict upon the conclusion of plaintiff's testimony? We think not.
Adjudicated cases in this or other jurisdictions are of little moment and afford but weak precedents. Each case is bottomed upon its own facts.
The grantor in his younger years was a man of a virile type. He was a man of positive convictions. He was the keeper of his own conscience. At the time of the execution of the deed in question he was but the shadow of his former self, physically and mentally. Members of his family and his friends and neighbors testify to many incidents of his later life and these incidents point in but one direction. They furthermore testify that on the date when the deed was executed he was unsound in mind. Dr. Donohoe after a personal study of Lewis Brewster gave to the court his expert and unqualified opinion that the grantor was mentally unsound, and that his mental disease had been progressive. Is a court privileged to throw aside the conclusions of expert and laymen, if the facts upon which they are based, are true? Galt v. Provan, 108 Iowa 561, 79 N.W. 357.
The deed in question was prepared by an attorney who was not the regular attorney of the grantor, and he had never transacted any business for him. The grantor was brought to the office of the scrivener and attorney by the grantee, the son, with whom he had been living for several weeks and it was upon the last day of that visit that the deed was executed. The wife of the grantor was not consulted nor was she requested to sign the deed. The grantee paid for its execution and kept the matter a secret.
The grantor's wife who had lived with him for 30 years was in the best position to detail the changes in her husband's mental and physical life and deportment, and it may not be said that her interest alone would cause her to swerve from the pathway of truth since the deed in question affected in no wise her property rights. She is corroborated in many of her recitals...
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