Bryant v. Shinnabargher

• Decision Date: 15 December 1920
• Docket Number: No. 20447.,20447.
• Citation: Bryant v. Shinnabargher, 227 S.W. 54, 285 Mo. 484 (Mo. 1920)
• Parties: BRYANT v. SHINNABARGER et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

227 S.W. 54

285 Mo. 484

BRYANT v. SHINNABARGER et al.

No. 20447.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

December 15, 1920.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Platte County; Alonzo D. Burnes, Judge.

Suit by Laura A. Bryant against Ettie L. Shinnabarger and others, in which defendants filed a cross-bill. From a judgment both parties appeal. Affirmed.

A. D. Gresham and James H. Hull, both of Platte City, for plaintiff.

Guy B. Park, of Platte City, for defendants.

WALKER, J.

This suit was brought in the circuit court of Platte county in January, 1917. The petition was in two counts. The first sought the reformation of a deed to real property, and the second to quiet title under the statute. Upon a trial before the court a decree was rendered on the first count denying the relief sought, and holding that the deed correctly expressed the mutual intention of the parties; on the second count it was found and adjudged that the plaintiff was the owner in fee of the property described in the deed.

A cross-bill filed by defendants alleged the invalidity of the deed on the grounds of undue influence exerted by plaintiff and others on the grantor, Elizabeth L. Glebb, and that she was, at the time, of unsound mind and incapable of executing a valid transfer of her property. The court denied the relief asked by defendants, and dismissed the cross-bill at their costs. Both parties have appealed.

Plaintiff's cause of action, more specifically stated, is that at the time of the execution of the deed the grantor was the owner of certain lots of ground in Tracy, Platte county, described generally as lots 7 to 18, both inclusive. The deed designates only lots 7 to 12. Plaintiff contends that it was the intention of the grantor to include in the transfer lots 13 to 18, and the reformation is sought in this particular. Only the purport of the deed is preserved in the record. It is as follows:

"Warranty deed, consideration $1.00, dated November 8th, 1916, from Elizabeth L. Glebb to Laura A. Bryant to lots 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, block 1, Tracy, Platte county, Missouri. Signed by Elizabeth L. Glebb, acknowledged before O. Q. Claflin, notary public, November 8th, 1916, and witnessed by O. Q. Claflin, Jr., and Alice Koster. Recorded in the office of recorder of deeds, at Platte City, Platte county, Missouri, November 10th, 1916."

On the same day the deed was executed, as stated in the body of same and in the notary's acknowledgment, a power of attorney was given by the grantor to the plaintiff, which is as follows:

"Know all men by these presents, that I, Mrs. E. L. Glebb, of Platte City, in the county of Platte, state of Missouri, have made, constituted, and appointed, and by these presents do make, constitute, and appoint, Laura A. Bryant, of Excelsior Springs, in the county of Clay, State of Mo., my true and lawful attorney in fact, for me and in my name and stead and to my use to grant, bargain, and sell all or any real estate of which I may at the present time possess the title, or which I may hereafter acquire, to collect any and all rent due me from any and all property which I may own or in which I may have an interest, to sign checks for me and to deposit moneys in my name, and to do any act which I might myself legally do, hereby giving unto my said attorney in fact full authority and power to do anything whatsoever requisite or necessary to be done in the premises as fully as I could or might do if personally present, with full power of substitution and revocation, hereby confirming and ratifying all that my said attorney in fact shall lawfully do or cause to be done."

(Further provision is made, which is noted, but not set forth in hæc verba in the record, that a power of attorney theretofore granted one G. M. Northrup is thereby revoked.)

"Witness my hand this 8th day of November, 1916, at Kansas City, in the county of Wyandotte, state of Kansas. Mrs. E. L. Glebb.

"Filed for record Nov. 10, 1916, at 10 o'clock 2 minutes a. m."

The plaintiff was not akin to the grantor, who was a widow about 74 years of age. The defendant Mrs. Shinnabarger was the latter's daughter and her only child, and the other defendants were her grandchildren. The grantor had for several years been afflicted with nephritis or acute inflammation of the kidneys, diagnosed by expert witnesses as Bright's disease, which finally resulted in her death. To obtain that care and treatment which the intelligent mind recognizes as necessary to relieve, if possible, one suffering from the malady with which she was afflicted, she went, or was taken, on the 24th of September, 1916, to a hospital in Kansas City, Kan. She remained there until the 27th day of October, 1916, when she was, under the direction of the plaintiff, taken by one Le Bonte, and a Mrs. Koster to the latter's home in Kansas City, Kan., where she died on the 10th day of November, 1916. That her death was due to the malady from which she had long been a sufferer there is no room for question. Her bloated and dropsical condition at the time of her removal from the hospital, and her death a short time thereafter from the disease with which she had been afflicted, render the presumption conclusive that she was, at the time of her removal, in the last stages of the disease and rapidly approaching dissolution. Thus much for her physical condition, about which there is no material controversy, at or about the time of the execution of the deed. The relevancy of the facts in regard to that condition is apparent as affording an aid to reason, based upon human experience, in determining the state of the grantor's mind at the time she made the deed, and whether that state was such as to render the grantor easily susceptible to improper influences or incapable of intelligently caring for and disposing of her property on her own volition.

Marshaling the facts for the plaintiff in their least disputable array, they show that at the time of the execution of the deed the grantor had a clear mind, with such an attendant comprehension of her affairs as to enable her to act intelligently, and that she did so act on her own volition, free from ulterior influences.

The correlated facts adduced by defendants to rebut the conclusion which would otherwise flow from the testimony for the plaintiff are that the grantor, before her admission to the hospital and while there, manifested marked signs of mental weakness, and was frequently subject to delusions rendering her incapable of intelligent thought or action; that this unsettled state of mind, which the facts justify us in classifying as a well-defined mania, was due to her physical ailment; that such had been the progress of her disease at the time of her removal from the hospital that her dropsical condition prevented her, although much disposed to sleep, from occupying a recumbent position for any length of time; that natural rest, necessary in health for recuperation and the renewal of vital forces, and more necessary in the enervating presence of disease, was thus denied her, with its consequent physical discomfort and a disturbance of her mental equilibrium; that her disturbed mental condition caused her to consent, if she did consent, to her removal from the hospital, where, it is reasonable to conclude, she had intelligent attention, including such palliating, if it could not be remedial, treatment as her condition demanded; thus environed and anxious as is the...