Douglass v. Spear

• Decision Date: 14 May 1925
• Citation: 129 A. 128
• Parties: DOUGLASS v. SPEAR et al.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

129 A. 128

DOUGLASS

v. SPEAR et al.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

May 14, 1925.

Bill to set aside conveyances by Helen G. Douglass, now Aleck, against Charles Cooper Spear and another. Decree for complainant advised.

Jos. Beck Tyler, of Camden, for complainant.

David R. Rose, of Camden, for defendant Spear.

Lewis Starr, of Camden, for Locustwood Cemetery, Inc.

William T. Boyle, of Camden, for Locustwood Cemetery Ass'n.

LEAMING, V. C. The purpose of the bill is to restore to complainant the legal title to three several properties which she conveyed to the Equitable Estates Corporation, June 22, 1920.

I think it clear that on that date these properties were owned by complainant and not by her son, who now claims that he then owned them. For many years they had maintained strong and mutual affections as mother and son with little if any care to measure or perpetuate obligations arising from their financial transactions. Their mutual purpose and expectation appear to have been that the mother should own and enjoy the properties so long as she lived, and that they should then pass to her son as her heir. I am unable to believe that financial aid extended by the son to his mother was with a purpose to acquire any legal or equitable estate in any of the properties.

Defendant Equitable Estates Corporation was formed to take title to these properties, and upon the conveyances being made by complainant to that corporation on the date named, its stock, except what is known as qualifying shares, was issued in the name of the mother and son in this manner: "Charles C. Spear and Helen C. Douglass, jointly, with full right of survivorship." No question has been raised touching the power of a corporation to issue its stock in this manner or touching the estate thereby created in the two persons to whom the stock was issued; but the practical effect was soon discerned by complainant when it was found that she could no longer control the property without the co-operation of her son.

Complainant is a woman who enjoys a high degree of intelligence, and her memory and mental powers at this time appear to be but little impaired. But it is as clear as the obvious can be made clear that to an extreme and unfortunate degree she possesses a tendency to place implicit confidence in those whom for the moment she trusts; throughout the long series of transactions disclosed in this case this has been clearly manifest. Pending this suit against her son, and on the eve of the day it was first set for trial, a short period of personal contact of complainant with her son induced her to seek its dismissal in his behalf and to join with her son in hostility against her husband; and shortly thereafter, pending a refusal of this court to dismiss the suit without investigation as to whether it was complainant's voluntary act, a short period of contact of complainant with her husband led her to renew her...