Chamberlain v. Preston

• Decision Date: 22 January 1936
• Docket Number: 44.
• Citation: 182 A. 579,170 Md. 1
• Parties: CHAMBERLAIN v. PRESTON ET AL.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

182 A. 579

170 Md. 1

CHAMBERLAIN v. PRESTON ET AL.

No. 44.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 22, 1936

Appeal from Circuit Court, Harford County; Walter W. Preston, Judge.

Suit by Florence Chamberlain against Alberta B. Preston and another. From an adverse decree, the complainant appeals.

Reversed and remanded.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, OFFUTT, PARKE, SLOAN, MITCHELL and JOHNSON, JJ.

Thomas F. Cadwalader, of Baltimore, for appellant.

Frederick Lee Cobourn, of Havre de Grace, for appellees.

BOND Chief Judge.

The complainant in a suit to compel her niece, the owner of land on which the aunt has built a bungalow, to convey the site and a surrounding portion of land to the aunt, appeals from a decree denying the right to it and dismissing the bill.

There is an agreement of testimony, or lack of dispute, on these facts. The aunt, Miss Chamberlain, had for some years lived with a Mrs. Walsh, who died in 1932. Miss Chamberlain had two nieces, daughters of two sisters. She had saved about $3,000 and held it deposited in two substantially equal savings accounts with each of the nieces named as entitled on the aunt's death to the money in one account. The amounts on deposit were never disclosed to the nieces. Mrs. Walsh had provided Miss Chamberlain, in addition, with an income of $50 a month. After Mrs. Walsh's death, Miss Chamberlain, in May, 1932, went to live with the one niece, Mrs. Preston.

Mrs Preston owned a field of five acres adjacent to a lot of ground on which she and her husband had their dwelling. The house lot, divided from the field by a hedge, belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Preston as tenants by the entireties. The aunt's bungalow was built in close proximity, at a distance from the Preston house estimated by the aunt as one and a half times the width of the courtroom in which her testimony was given, and a common water supply for both houses was arranged by installing an engine and other equipment in the Preston house, and from that leading to the bungalow. The aunt paid for the engine and paid a share of the cost of electricity used to run it. She also contributed an amount to pay taxes on her bungalow, but none to pay taxes on the ground. There was no change in the assessment to the niece on the tax books of the county. The aunt, however, testified that she supposed she was paying taxes on the ground as well as on the house. She testified that all, or nearly all, her savings were used in building the bungalow, equipping it, and grading the yard for it. The parties lived on in this situation, in complete harmony, for two years, until the aunt asked for a deed to the land occupied by her, and the niece and her husband declared this had never been intended and declined to give it.

There are differences in testimony to the remaining facts, although still some agreement. The aunt testified that a few weeks after she went to live with the niece she (the aunt) remarked that she would like to have a house of her own, and that the niece said, "Why don't you build yourself one. I will give you the ground." And three other witnesses testified for the aunt to subsequent statements of Mrs. Preston's that she had given the aunt the land to build on. The niece testified that shortly after the aunt came to live with her the aunt asked whether she might build a bungalow on the niece's property, and added that the bungalow would be the niece's share of what the aunt had, and the niece might have to pay Mrs. Phelps, the other niece, $200 or $300 to make her share balance up, to which Mrs. Preston replied that she did not want to get mixed up with Mrs. Phelps over what the aunt had left Mrs. Preston, after the aunt had gone. Mr. Preston, before the bungalow was built, stepped off, or pointed out, a portion of the ground for the bungalow, designating the place for a lane on one side, with the hedge on the other, and remarking that a locust tree in the rear was on his land. Both the aunt and he testified that this was done to show where the house was to be placed. No measurements were taken then, or at any other time, spoken of. The aunt had no conception of measurements of the space claimed. But the defendants testified that it was a space appropriate for use in connection with a house built there, and expressed willingness that the aunt should, in any event, occupy it for her life.

The testimony does not show that the parties ever spoke specifically of a conveyance or of title in the plot of ground until 1934, two years after the building of the bungalow. Then, the aunt said, she was moved to ask for a deed by two considerations, that, if she should fall sick she could not raise money on the property by a mortgage, and she was sorry that her friends should think her so dumb as to build a house without a deed to the land. She considered herself dumb for doing it. Mrs. Preston answered, as stated, that she never intended to give the aunt a deed, had never thought of that, did not intend to convey the land to the aunt in that way. She and her husband are willing that the aunt continue to live there during her life, but not to give a deed. One lot has been sold from the five acres, but requests for disposal of other lots have all been refused. Somewhat later, the niece testified, the aunt stated that, if the question of the land was settled satisfactorily to her, the aunt would still divide her estate between the two...