Coffey v. Sullivan

• Decision Date: 17 June 1901
• Citation: 49 A. 520,63 N.J.E. 296
• Parties: COFFEY et al. v. SULLIVAN et ux.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

49 A. 520

63 N.J.E. 296

COFFEY et al.

v. SULLIVAN et ux.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 17, 1901.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Appeal from court of chancery.

Bill by Catharine Coffey and others against John H. Sullivan and wife. From a decree of the chancellor dismissing the bill, complainants appeal. Reversed.

Alan H. & Theodore Strong, for appellants.

Vail & Ward, for respondents.

VREDENBURGH, J. This bill is filed by three of the four children of James Sullivan and Julia, his wife, to set aside a deed of conveyance of land claimed to have been fraudulently obtained from their father by their other brother John H. Sullivan. The deed is dated, and was formally executed February 6, 1890, by the father (who was seised of the fee of the lands), joined with the mother, who had an inchoate estate of dower therein. The father died Intestate on January 6, 1899, aged about 81 years, and must have been, at the date of this conveyance, about 78 years old; and the mother, who is still living, and was then about 82 or 83 years of age, was, according to the uncontradicted evidence, feeble-minded or demented to such a degree as to have been incapable of intelligently transacting business. The mental capacity of the father about the time of the execution of the deed is in dispute, under the evidence. Two witnesses testified that in their opinion his mind was very feeble, and two witnesses swore, on the contrary, that in their opinion the condition of his mind was good. No witness has testified as to the father's mental condition, referring to the precise occasion of either the signing or the acknowledgment of the deed. The deed is of the ordinary "bargain and sale" form, under the statute of uses, without covenants of warranty, and conveys to John the title in fee-simple absolute to four lots of land situate in Railway, N. J. (the value does not appear), one of which embraces the homestead property, which had been the grantors' home for many years. It is established by the evidence, and is conceded in the case, that this deed conveyed away all of the lands owned by the father, and that his personalty was of trifling amount. No administration of it appears to have been taken out. The deed contains no power of revocation reserved by the grantors, nor any covenant or agreement by the grantee for the future care or support of the grantors in consideration for the grant. John did not at any time, either before or after the transfer, consult with or inform his brothers or sister concerning it, and, in fact, when asked about it by his sister on an occasion some time after the delivery of the deed to him, evasively denied that he had the property. The consideration recital of the deed is in the usual form, and recites that the grantors, "in consideration of the sum of one dollar to them in hand paid * * * have granted, bargained, sold, * * * and conveyed" to the grantee, "and his heirs and assigns, forever," the four tracts of land above referred to (describing them by their metes and bounds). There is no legal evidence in the case, other than this recital, that the grantors, or either of them, ever received any consideration money for this deed. The defendant (the only other party to the bargain and sale evidenced by this deed now alive and mentally capable of giving competent evidence as to any consideration agreed upon between them) has not been sworn as a witness. The hill prays answer without oath, and the statements of the defendant's unverified answer, in respect to any consideration, whether responsive or not to the bill, cannot, under the statute and our settled practice, be either regarded or received as evidence against the complainants. So far forth as this deed of "bargain and sale" rests upon a money consideration received, it must, under the evidence, be found and presumed that only the nominal sum of one dollar was received for it by the grantors,— a sum so grossly inadequate as of itself, when viewed in the light of the circumstances and relations of the parties, to be a convincing proof of fraud or imposition. The rule adopted by Chancellor Vroom in the case of Wintermute v. Snyder, 3 N. J. Eq. 490, was that, "if the inadequacy be such as to shock the conscience, it will amount to evidence of fraud, and will be so considered"; citing cases. 2 Pom. Eq. Jur. par. 927, states the principle, as follows: "Although the actual cases in which a contract or conveyance has been canceled on account of gross inadequacy merely, without other inequitable incidents, are very few, yet the doctrine is settled by a consensus of decisions and dicta that, even in the absence of all other circumstances, when the inadequacy of price is so gross that it shocks the conscience, and furnishes satisfactory and decisive evidence of fraud, it will be a sufficient ground for canceling a conveyance or contract, whether executed or executory. Even then fraud, and not inadequacy of price, is the true and only cause for the interposition of equity and the granting of relief." In the case of Gifford v. Thorn, 9 N. J. Eq. 702, the principle was stated by Chief Justice Green, with a modification as follows: "That, upon a sale of property, gross inadequacy of price, Joined with inequality in the position of the contracting parties, is a ground of equitable relief;" and in Phillips v. Pullen, 45 N. J. Eq. 830, 18 Atl. 849, the opinion of this court (delivered by Justice Garrison) lays down the rule in this wise: "Fraud will be presumed from inadequacy of consideration, standing alone, if the inadequacy be so gross as to satisfy the court that it could have been brought about only by deceit or imposition, provided the circumstances and relations of the parties either lend themselves to such a presumption, or are without probative force sufficient to neutralize it."

Testing the present transaction either by the rule as stated by Chancellor Vroom and Pomeroy, that fraud would be presumed from gross inadequacy of price alone, or by the later modifications announced in Gifford v. Thorn, supra, and by this court in the case of Phillips v. Pullen, just referred to, to the effect that the position, circumstances, and relations of the parties are to be considered before the making of such presumption, this deed, so far as its validity depends upon the feature of bargain and sale, cannot be sustained. The parties to it did not occupy a position of equality. John lived within three or four blocks from his father, and had continual access to him. The other children lived at a distance, and only saw their parents occasionally. The father was, in some degree at least, under the weight of the evidence, enfeebled, both mentally and physically, and the mother, who joined him in the conveyance, instead of being capable of assistance by her advice, must rather have been an obstacle to a correct appreciation by the father of the gravity of the act. The grantors had not the benefit of independent advice in the making of this important transfer. The lawyer who seems to have been consulted about the matter as the "medium of the transfer of the property" was the selection of the grantee alone. No family consultation or arrangement appears ever to have been had or held...