Dodge v. Anna Jaques Hospital

• Decision Date: 04 November 1938
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: LAURENCE P. DODGE v. THE ANNA JAQUES HOSPITAL & another.

301 Mass. 431

17 N.E.2d 308

LAURENCE P. DODGE v. THE ANNA JAQUES HOSPITAL & another.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

November 4, 1938

May 2, 3, 1938.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., DONAHUE, QUA DOLAN, & COX, JJ.

Equity Pleading and Practice, Master: findings. Trust, Resulting. Limitations Statute of. Equity Jurisdiction, Laches.

Where a master's report does not state nor show that his ultimate conclusion was based solely on the subsidiary facts recited and the evidence is not reported, the conclusion must stand as binding on the trial court and this court on appeal unless the subsidiary facts found show that the ultimate conclusion could not be justified upon any evidence that the master might have received.

Statement by DOLAN, J., of the duty of a master as to reporting subsidiary facts and the standing on appeal of a report which did not show that his conclusion was based solely on subsidiary facts stated in the report.

Money given to a hospital for the limited purpose, clearly understood by it, of being used in remodeling a certain building was held by it on a resulting trust for the donor upon abandonment of the remodeling project.

The statute of limitations did not begin to run against a donor's right to enforce a resulting trust, arising upon the donee's repudiation of the limited purpose for which the gift was made, until the repudiation was brought home to the donor; and a finding was right that the donor was not guilty of laches where he brought suit about a year after he discovered the repudiation and several months after the donee had refused a demand to return the gift.

BILL IN EQUITY, filed in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Essex on July 27, 1937.

The decrees were entered by order of Lummus, J. P. I. Lawton, for the defendant The Anna Jaques Hospital.

E. Foss, for the plaintiff.

DOLAN, J. This is a suit in equity in which the plaintiff seeks to establish a resulting trust in certain contributions made by him to the defendant hospital (hereinafter called the defendant) in May and December, 1928, for the purpose of removing and rebuilding a building formerly used by the defendant as an "Anti-Tuberculosis Building," and to compel the return of the money so contributed. The suit was filed in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Essex and was referred to a master who reported thereon. By order of a single justice of this court an interlocutory decree was entered overruling the defendant's exceptions and confirming the master's report, and a final decree was entered that the defendant held the sum of $2,100 upon a resulting trust in favor of the plaintiff and that the defendant collect that sum from its bank account in the First and Ocean National Bank and pay it over to the plaintiff with interest from the date of filing the bill and costs. The interlocutory decree was entered on January 4, 1938, and the final decree on February 14, 1938. On February 26, 1938, the defendant appealed "from the interlocutory decree overruling the said defendant's exceptions and confirming the master's report, and . . . from the final decree . . . entered on February 14, 1938." In so far as the appeal purported to be from the interlocutory decree it was not seasonably taken, and the only appeal before us is that from the final decree. G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 214, Sections 19, 26. Hays v. Georgian Inc. 280 Mass. 10 , 15. The correctness of the interlocutory decree, however, is open for consideration upon the appeal from the final decree. G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 214, Section 27. Gibbons v. Gibbons, 296 Mass. 89 .

The material facts found by the master are as follows: The plaintiff is a resident of Newbury in the county of Essex, and the defendant is a charitable corporation which owns and operates a hospital in Newburyport in the same county. The defendant, prior to the year 1918, erected and thereafter maintained a hospital building for the treatment of tuberculosis. This building is situated about four hundred feet from the defendant's main building. After the erection of the county sanatorium in Middleton, the defendant ceased to care for tuberculous patients, and on July 21, 1927, at a meeting of the trustees of the defendant corporation, its medical staff recommended that the tuberculosis building be remodeled for use as a "maternity ward." This recommendation was referred to a special committee which, on January 19, 1928, advised that the building be removed to a site nearer the main building and remodeled at an expense of approximately $15,000. The plaintiff was a member of this committee. At a meeting of the trustees, of whom the plaintiff was one, held on February 22, 1928, and at which he was present, it was voted to adopt the committee's recommendations and to put them into effect as soon as the necessary funds could be made available, and that the same committee have charge of raising the money and of conducting the work, with authority to sign contracts and begin work when in its opinion "a sufficient proportion of the necessary amount was assured." At the outset of the campaign to raise funds the plaintiff subscribed $2,100 of which he paid $100 in May, 1928.

On October 5, 1928, the vote authorizing the moving of the tuberculosis building was rescinded by the trustees on the plaintiff's motion because it had been ascertained that the proposed change would cost more than the first estimate. The plaintiff thereupon suggested that the building remain in its location but that it be connected with the main building by a tunnel or arcade. It was then voted that one Moseley, the largest contributor to the fund, be consulted before any change in the original plan was made.

On or about December 1, 1928, the plaintiff completed his subscription by the payment of $2,000. Some time later the "building" committee obtained an estimate in excess of $20,000 as the cost of connecting the tuberculosis building with the main building, but no report was made thereon to the trustees. At the annual meeting of the "hospital" on January 24, 1929, at which the plaintiff was present and was elected president, it was reported that Moseley was willing to have his contribution of $5,000 used for "equipment and improvement." A total of $20,000 was raised in the campaign for funds and "No part of it has been used for any utilization of the . . . [tuberculosis building] or for any work upon, or connected with, it." The plaintiff did not attend any meetings of the trustees after April, 1929, and on October 24, 1929, tendered his resignation as president, but no action was taken thereon, and in January, 1930, he was re-elected president. The plaintiff moved from Boston to New York about June 10, 1930, where he lived until May, 1936, when he moved to Newbury. He spent his summers during the intervening period in Newbury.

The fund involved was at first deposited in a checking account in a national bank and later about $18,000 thereof was...