Burnett v. Smith

• Decision Date: 29 June 1908
• Docket Number: 13,259
• Citation: 93 Miss. 566,47 So. 117
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: RUFUS BURNETT ET AL v. AMANDA C. SMITH

47 So. 117

93 Miss. 566

RUFUS BURNETT ET AL v. AMANDA C. SMITH

No. 13,259

Supreme Court of Mississippi

June 29, 1908

FROM the chancery court of, second district, Hinds county, HON ROBERT B. MAYES, Chancellor.

Burnett and others, appellants, were complainants in the court below Mrs. Smith, appellee, was defendant there. From a decree in defendant's favor the complainants appealed to the supreme court. The facts are sufficiently apparent from the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

Wells &amp Wells, for appellants.

The preponderance of the evidence in this case shows that D. J Hartzog was insane at the time he made the deed.

The evidence in this case shows that the grantee had great influence over her father, and exercised that influence over him to induce him to make the deed, when otherwise he would not have made it.

The relationship shown to have existed between the father and the daughter was such that when a voluntary conveyance was made to her by him, it devolved on her to show, beyond all question, that she did not use undue influence with him; the testimony in this case shows, prima facie at least, that she did exercise that influence over him, and she has failed to prove by any testimony that she did not exercise such influence.

The burden of proof was put upon Mrs. Smith to show that she did not use undue influence, and we will now cite the court to the authorities which sustain us in this position. We cannot in this connection better state the law upon this subject than Daniel has done in his work on Chancery practice, Vol 1, page 852, (4th ed.), and quoting now from the author:--

"It may also be stated generally that whenever a person obtains any voluntary donation, or benefit from another, the onus probandi is upon the former, if the transaction be questioned, to prove that the transaction was righteous, and that the donor voluntarily and deliberately did the act, knowing its nature and effect. Moreover where the relation of the parties is such that undue influence might have been used, the onus probandi, to show that such influence was not exerted, is upon the person receiving the benefit."

On this point we think we are amply sustained by this court in the following cases to which we invite special attention.

The case of Norfleet v. Beall, 82 Miss. 538 (34 So. 328), the syllabus uses this language. "A deed from an invalid, credulous and weak minded old woman, prepared by the attorneys of the grantee, purporting to convey her entire estate, with reservation of a life estate in the grantor, to her family physician and confidential friend, in consideration of care and medical attention and fifty dollars, is void, in the absence of evidence showing that the transaction was free from fraud and undue influence."

In its opinion the court says, such a transaction between parties sustaining such relations cannot be sustained in a court of equity, unless the proof leaves the transaction free from fraud and undue influence.

After the confidential relationship between the father and daughter has been established, it is devolved on her to show that she did not use her influence to obtain the deed.See also Sheenan v. Kearney, 82 Miss. 702, 21 So. 41.

The case of Plant v. Plant, 76 Miss. 560, 25 So. 151, in its facts and the legal questions involved in it, is strikingly like the case at bar, and sustains our contention. In that case there was no evidence of the exercising of any undue influence by the father, by procuring the assignment from the son, but the court held that the law would infer undue influence from the relationship which existed between the parties, and held that as there was no positive proof that he did not exercise undue influence, the conveyance must be set aside. The syllabus in that case reads as follows:

"A father's undue influence over his invalid son may be established by circumstantial, as well as by direct, evidence."

Transactions of this kind between parent and child are always to be viewed with suspicion, and the court should always scrutinize a case where an old, infirm, weak and sick father conveys all his property to the child who is living with him and caring for him, and the other children receive nothing, especially when it is not shown that he had any unkind feeling toward his other children. The case is strikingly like the proponent of a will, in as much, as the grantee never took possession of the property, or had the slightest control over it, until after the father's death.

It is held in King v. Rowan, 82 Miss. 1, 34 So. 325, and Sheehan v. Kearney, 82 Miss. 702, 21 So. 41, that the burden of proof is always on the proponent of a will, and, in this instance where the deed never took effect, so far as the possession and use of the property was concerned, until after the death of the father, the grantee ought to be held to as strict proof of the fairness of the transaction with her father, and be required to prove positively and clearly that she did not use any influence over him to induce him to make the deed. Not only is the principle of law that the burden of proof is on her to show that she did not use undue influence well established in this state in the cases to which we have referred, but it is universally true with other states.

The case of Haydock v. Haydock, 34 N.J.Eq. 57, uses this language in a similar case to the one at bar.

"When a person enfeebled in mind by disease or old age, is so placed as to be likely to be subject to the influence of another, and makes a voluntary disposition of property in favor of that person, the courts require proof of the fact that the donor understood the nature of the act, and that it was not done through the influence of the donee." This case is cited and approved in Hill v. Miller, 50 Kansas, 665.

In Paddock v. Pulsifer, 43 Kan. 718, following Highberger v. Steffler, 21 Md. 338, the court says--

"In such a case it is not necessary to...