Brown v. Brown, 86-255.

• Decision Date: 22 April 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-255.,86-255.
• Parties: Johnnie BROWN (Estate of Sarah Key), Appellant, v. Thomas P. BROWN III, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

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524 A.2d 1184 Johnnie BROWN (Estate of Sarah Key), Appellant,
v.
Thomas P. BROWN III, Appellee. No. 86-255. District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Submitted December 4, 1986. Decided April 22, 1987.

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William B. Barton, Washington, D.C., for appellant Johnnie Brown.

Thomas P. Brown, III, Washington, D.C., pro se.

Before FERREN and STEADMAN, Associate Judges, and GALLAGHER, Senior Judge.

FERREN, Associate Judge:

Appellant, Johnnie Brown, challenges a trial court order following a bench trial denying his claims against the estate of his sister, Sarah Key. Appellant filed separate claims for personal services rendered and money spent on her behalf before her death. We agree with appellant that the trial court applied an incorrect legal standard in deciding his claims for services rendered. Moreover, the trial court failed to address appellant's claim for money spent on behalf of Ms. Key. We therefore must reverse and remand for further consideration.

I.

Sarah Key died on August 28, 1984 after a long illness. Before her death she had been confined at Howard University Hospital on two separate occasions for lengthy periods of time. While Ms. Key was in the hospital, appellant had looked after her home. Upon Ms. Key's last release from the hospital in early May 1984, appellant had left his home and moved into hers to provide the full-time nursing care his sister required. Appellant testified that, except for doing necessary errands, he had remained at his sister's home continuously, meaning 24 hours a day, until she died three and a half months later. Appellant claimed he had paid his sister's bills, including funeral expenses, cooked her meals, cleaned the house, done the laundry, changed her bedpan, and had provided other practical nursing care. After Ms. Key's death, appellant filed a claim with the estate's personal representative totaling $10,000 for personal services plus $1,118 representing the amount appellant allegedly had spent on Ms. Key's behalf.¹ Appellant filed his claim after discovering he had not been named a beneficiary in his sister's will.

At trial, appellant testified that he had performed the services pursuant to an oral contract with his sister. According to appellant, Ms. Key had promised to pay him for his services sometime in the future. He further testified that she had asked him to stay with her after she left the hospital and had reassured him that he would "be well paid."

Appellant attempted to corroborate the existence of this alleged contract with the testimony of several of his sister's neighbors, who indicated that Ms. Key had told them appellant would be rewarded for his help. May Warren testified that, shortly before Ms. Key's death, she had told Warren that appellant was taking care of her and would be paid well for his actions. Bilbo Clayborn, Ms. Key's next door neighbor, testified that the decedent had told him "she would see that he [appellant] got paid for his time." On cross-examination, however, Mr. Clayborn could not recall the specific date of this conversation, and he admitted that Ms. Key had not indicated how much she would pay appellant. Mrs.

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Arnold, another neighbor, testified that Ms. Key had told her, in appellant's presence, that appellant would be paid "for all the things he had ever done for her." Mrs. Arnold, too, admitted that Ms. Key had not mentioned any specific sum she would give to appellant. Nor had she said when she would pay him. Finally, Shirley Marie Nelson, a friend of the decedent's, testified that Ms. Key had told her she was going to change her will to compensate appellant for the money he had spent on her and the things he had done for her.

Appellee Brown, the personal representative of Sarah Key's estate, presented the testimony of two witnesses, one of whom stated that Ms. Key had told her she would only leave her property to appellant as a "last resort." The other witness testified that, for many years, she had assisted Ms. Key with her bills and that Ms. Key usually had had money left over each month after payment of all her bills.

In its post-trial order, the trial court denied appellant's claim for compensation for services rendered. Relying on a presumption that services rendered by one family member to another are gratuitous in the absence of conclusive evidence of an agreement to pay, the trial court found that appellant "offered no convincing corroborating evidence to prove the existence of an agreement with his sister." The trial court did not address appellant's claim for money spent on behalf of his sister. See supra note 1.

II.

With respect to his claim for personal services, appellant asserts several grounds for reversal. Only one of these, however, merits substantial discussion. Appellant challenges the court's reliance on a presumption that services rendered by one sibling to another are intended to be gratuitous.²

A.

We note at the outset that ordinarily, in the absence of a close family relationship, a promise to pay will be implied in law when one party renders valuable services that the other party knowingly and voluntarily accepts. E.g., Zaleski v. Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, 256 A.2d 424 (D.C. 1969). Actually, a claim based on a contract implied in law (sometimes called a quasi-contract) "is not a contract [claim] at all, but [results from] a duty trust under certain conditions upon one party to require another in order to avoid the former's unjust enrichment." Bloomgarden v. Coyer, 156 U.S. App.D.C. 109, 116, 479 F.2d 201, 208 (1973) (footnote omitted) (adopted in H.G. Smithy Co. v. Washington Medical Center, 374 A.2d 891, 893 (D.C. 1977); see also TVL Associates v. A & M Construction Corp., 474 A.2d 156,

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159 (D.C. 1984). When, however, there is an applicable presumption that the services were rendered gratuitously — as occurs, for example, in the context of a parent-child relationship, see Tuohy v. Trail, 19 App. D.C. 79 (1901) — a promise to pay obviously cannot be implied by the mere rendition and acceptance of valuable services. The presumption itself, as a matter of law, negates any implication that "it would be unjust for the recipient to retain the benefit conferred" without paying for it. H. G. Smithy Co., 374 A.2d at 895; see also Farrin v. Harlow, 62 App.D.C. 314, 67 F.2d 580 (1933) (where plaintiffs rendered nursing services for eleven years to decedent, to whom they were not related but with whom they lived as a family, court, without explicitly invoking presumption, concluded services were gratuitous, not contractual). It follows, then, that when a presumption of gratuity is applicable — as the trial court held in this case — a claimant may only recover, if at all, by rebutting that presumption with evidence of an express contract or a contract implied in fact.

B.

We turn, therefore, to the question whether the trial court was correct in premising this case on a presumption of gratuity. In Tuohy, 19 App.D.C. at 87, the court held...