Crue v. Caldwell

• Decision Date: 20 February 1890
• Parties: CRUE v. CALDWELL.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

19 A. 188

52 N.J.L. 215

CRUE

v. CALDWELL.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Feb. 20, 1890.

Error to circuit court, Hudson county, before Justice KNAPP.

Prior to the 8th day of March, 1862, Janet Caldwell and her son John were seised in fee, as tenants in common in equal shares, of a lot of land situate on a corner of South Seventh street and Newark avenue, in Jersey City. By deed dated on that day, containing full covenants, Mrs. Caldwell, with her husband, Francis, conveyed her undivided half of that lot to the son John in fee. By another deed dated on the same day, John conveyed to his father the entire lot for the father's life, and at the same time made a mortgage of the whole property to his five sisters—Janet, the widow of David Brown; Margaret, the wife of Joseph Well wood; Mary; Jane; and Elizabeth,—to secure to each of them the payment of $500 within six months after their father's death. This mortgage, among other things, recited that it was intended to secure to each of the sisters the payment of $500 which their mother intended to have left them at her death, and that Janet Caldwell and her husband had conveyed the lot to the mortgagor, John, and that he, in consideration of that conveyance, had agreed to pay the money as aforesaid. The two deeds and the mortgage were drawn by the same conveyancer at the same time, and each bore date on the 8th day of March, and was acknowledged on the 20th of March, and recorded on the 21st of March, in the same year. After the execution of the papers, the mortgage was delivered to Janet Brown, one of the mortgagees, and it remained in her possession until after her father's death, when she put it in the hands of attorneys for collection. In April, 1868, the daughter Elizabeth Caldwell married the plaintiff in error, William H. Crue, and in March, 1877, she died, and Crue was duly appointed the administrator of her estate. Francis Caldwell died in 1885; and in December, 1886, after a suit to foreclose the mortgage had been commenced, John Caldwell paid the mortgage off. Each of his living sisters received her $500; and William H. Crue, as his wife's administrator, received that which, by the terms of the mortgage, was payable to her. In October, 1887, Janet Caldwell, who had survived her husband, brought suit in the Hudson county circuit court to recover from William H. Crue the portion of the mortgage money that had been paid to him. The theory upon which she sought to maintain her suit was that in 1862, when the deeds and mortgage were made, she was extremely ill, and in apprehension of immediate death, and that under such apprehension she caused the mortgage to be made to her daughters as a gilt causa mortis, which her subsequent recovery revoked. The suit was resisted on the grounds that the mortgage was intended as payment to the daughters for services that they had rendered to their mother in assisting her to conduct a bakery; and if that contention could not be sustained, and the mortgage was to be construed as a gift, that it was a perfected gift inter vivos, and not a gift causa mortis. Several witnesses upon each side of the case were examined; and, after the testimony was concluded, the court expressed a desire to hear counsel, first upon the question whether the suit was maintainable in a court of law, and then upon the question whether the transaction was entered into by Mrs. Caldwell in anticipation of her speedy death. Counsel were then instructed to address the jury upon the question whether the mortgage was designed as a gift or as payment. After the jurors had retired to deliberate, they returned to the court and reported that they could not agree, and thereupon they were directed by the judge to render a verdict for the plaintiff.

Voorhees & Cotter and Traphagen & Beekman, for plaintiff in error. Vredenburgh & Garretson, for defendant in error.

MCGILL, Ch., (after stating the facts as above.) This case may be disposed of upon the exception to the court's direction to the jury to return a verdict for the plaintiff, and the assignment of error thereon. The direction must have been given upon the assumption that the mortgage to Mrs. Caldwell's daughters was a gift causa mortis. To establish it as such a gift, it was necessary to show, not only that it was in fact a gift, but also that, at the time it was given, Mrs. Caldwell apprehended the near approach of her death. These facts were controverted. The proofs concerning them were submitted to the jury, and it was after the jury had reported that it could not agree that the judge directed a verdict for the plaintiff. The first question presented by the objection to this direction is whether the judge was justified in taking the case from the jury.

It is well settled that a jury should be controlled in its verdict by a peremptory instruction, only where the testimony is of such a conclusive character as would compel the...