Doyle v. Rody

• Decision Date: 08 April 1942
• Docket Number: 13.
• Citation: Doyle v. Rody, 180 Md. 471, 25 A.2d 457 (Md. 1942)
• Parties: DOYLE v. RODY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

25 A.2d 457

180 Md. 471

DOYLE v. RODY.

No. 13.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

April 8, 1942

Appeal from Circuit Court, Carroll County; Wm. Henry Forsythe, Jr. and James E. Boylan, Jr., Judges.

Suit by Benjamin F. Rody, administrator of the estate of Matthew T Doyle, deceased, against William F. Doyle, to obtain a decree that bank account established by deceased belonged to the administrator and not to defendant.From a decree, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

SLOAN J., dissenting.

F. Neal Parke, and D. Eugene Walsh, both of Westminster, for appellant.

Michael J. Manley, of Baltimore (A. Earl Shipley, of Westminster, and Julius A. Victor, Jr., of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BOND, C.J., and SLOAN, DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, and MARBURY, JJ.

DELAPLAINE Judge.

The issue in this case is whether Matthew T. Doyle, now deceased, had sufficient mental capacity to open two accounts in the First National Bank of Westminster in December, 1939, in trust for himself and his brother, William F. Doyle, appellant.

After separating from his wife in Delaware in 1937, Doyle, having no children, lived in a boarding house in Baltimore.In 1939, when he was 68 years old, he was paralyzed in his right arm.He was examined at the Mercy Hospital Clinic on December 1, 1939, by Dr. Philip F. Lerner, a specialist in neurology, who found that he had cerebral arteriosclerosis, senile deterioration and softening of the brain, and an increase in blood cells which caused him to be mentally abnormal and confused.However, on December 3he was able to visit his brother in Westminster, returning to Baltimore on the following day.

On the evening of December 6, 1939, Doyle wandered into the Southwestern Police Station in a dazed condition.He was unable to tell his name, but mumbled that he had been robbed.The desk lieutenant ordered the turnkey to give him a cell and search him for marks of identification.He wore an overcoat and two suits of clothes, but no stockings.The turnkey found that he had three bottles of medicine, $26.47 in cash, and a bank book of the Savings Bank of Baltimore showing that he had on deposit in that institution more than $11,000.He also had a note book containing the name of Mrs. Edgar Patterson, who when called on the telephone was found to be his niece.Mrs. Patterson and her husband arrived shortly afterwards and took him to their home on Wickham Road, gave him hot tea, and put him to bed.

On the following day Mrs. Patterson took her uncle in a taxicab to the Savings Bank, where he inquired about an old bank book.From there she took him to his boarding house on Fayette Street to get some clothes.Unable to recall the number of the house, he walked up and down the street with his niece for some time until they finally located the right place.On returning home Mrs. Patterson took his bundle of clothes and a tin box to his room, but had great difficulty in persuading him that his clothes had not been left in the back yard.Taking him upstairs to his room, she finally convinced him that his clothes had not been thrown away.On the next morning she called her family physician to attend him, but just as the doctor arrived at the front door, Doyle darted out the back door refusing to have any medical attention.On Saturday, December 9, he went for a walk, saying he would be back in time for lunch, but he never returned.That evening he appeared again at his brother's home in Westminster, where he said: 'The Pattersons have been trying to hold me, and I want to stay here with you people.* * * Those people are ganged up against me and I am afraid of them.'On the following Monday his brother took him to see a lawyer to arrange for a disposition of his estate.On Tuesday, December 12, he was taken to the First National Bank, where he signed a draft for $11,427.71 on the Savings Bank of Baltimore.The Savings Bank asked for a doctor's certificate showing that there was no mental disability of the depositor; so on December 16 Doyle was taken to the First National Bank again, and given a physical examination by Dr. W. Glenn Speicher, of Westminster, in the presence of Dr. Lewis K. Woodward, president of the bank.Dr. Speicher observed that Doyle had suffered a slight stroke, indicating a hemorrhage in the brain, and that he had some cerebral pressure which affected his mental faculties to some extent; but he certified on the back of the draft that Doyle was of sound and disposing mind.

It was on December 22 that a joint savings account of $11,000 and a joint checking account of $427.71 were opened in the bank in trust for Matthew T. Doyle and William F. Doyle, joint owners, subject to the order of either, the balance at the death of either to belong to the survivor.These trusts, if valid, would disinherit Doyle's wife, another brother, the issue of a deceased brother, and the issue of a deceased sister.On December 30 Doyle, then in a semiconscious and stuperous condition, was removed upon Dr. Speicher's advice to the University Hospital in Baltimore.Dr. Harry V. Langlettig, a specialist in internal medicine, diagnosed his case on that day as hypertensive cardio-vascular renal disease, cerebral hemorrhage and generalized arteriosclerosis.Doyle died on January 8, 1940.

Benjamin F. Rody, administrator of the estate, alleged in the bill of complaint that Doyle's mind had been so greatly weakened that he did not understand that he was establishing trusts, and that the defendant had induced him to establish them by artifice and undue influence.The Chancellors decreed that the bank accounts were the property and estate of Matthew T. Doyle, deceased, and were payable to the administrator.

It is expressly provided by statute in this State that no will shall be valid unless the testator is of sound and disposing mind and capable of executing a valid deed or contract.Code, art. 93, § 335.This rule is likewise applicable to disposition of property by creation of a trust.It has been stated by this Court that a testator, to be considered of sound and disposing mind, must understand the nature of his act and its effects, the extent of the property of which he intends to dispose, the persons to whom he means to give it, the manner in which he is disposing of it, and the relative claims of the different persons who are or should be the objects of his bounty.McElwee v. Ferguson,43 Md. 479, 484;Davis v. Denny,94 Md. 390, 50 A. 1037.The fact that the grantor in a conveyance was debilitated by illness at the time he executed it does not necessarily imply an absence of sufficient capacity to dispose of property by gift or otherwise.The weakening of a person's mind is not sufficient to destroy the validity of his conveyance where he still retains a full comprehension of the meaning, design, and effect of his act at the time of its execution.Inasmuch as the law looks in such cases to the competency of the understanding, it is manifest that advancing years and bodily infirmities do not of themselves deprive a person of capacity to enter into a contract or dispose of property by will or otherwise.Birchett v. Smith,150 Md. 369, 133 A. 117;Cronin v. Kimble,156 Md. 489, 144 A. 698.While the law presumes sanity and testamentary capacity, yet when it appears that a person was in such an enfeebled condition of mind and body immediately before and immediately after the date of a transaction as to render him incompetent to transact business, the presumption arises that he was unable to understand what he was doing at the time of the transaction, and the burden of proof as to his capacity to dispose of his property at that particular time is imposed upon the grantee.Brown v. Ward,53 Md. 376, 387, 396, 36 Am.Rep. 422;Davis v. Denny,94 Md. 390, 50 A. 1037;Ralston v. Turpin,129 U.S. 663, 9 S.Ct. 420, 32 L.Ed. 747.

In the case at bar Dr. Lerner and Dr. Langlettig testified from personal examination that Doyle's disability was chronic, progressive, and incurable, and expressed the opinion that he could not possibly have had any lucid intervals in the month of December, 1939.It was argued by the appellant that Dr. Lerner's testimony was inadmissible because there was doubt about Doyle's identity since the date on the label on one of the medicine bottles appeared to be 1937 instead of 1939.However, Dr. Lerner testified that he had examined a patient giving his name as 'Matthew Doyle' on December 1, 1939; that the patient had a slow, shuffling walk, which was characteristic of Matthew T. Doyle; and that the medicine in one of the bottles in Matthew T. Doyle's tin box was precisely the kind prescribed by Dr. Lerner on December 1, 1939, and bore the label of the Mercy Hospital Dispensary.We sustain the ruling that Dr. Lerner's testimony was admissible.

The opinions of Dr. Lerner and Dr. Langlettig were substantiated by Dr. Irving J. Spear, head of the Department of Nervous Diseases in the Medical School of the University of Maryland and by Dr. Andrew C. Gillis, who has taught this subject for many years at the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University.After hearing all of the testimony, Dr. Spear and Dr. Gillis expressed the opinion that Doyle could not possibly have been of sound and disposing mind in December, 1939.The opinions of medical doctors are admissible in evidence as to sanity or insanity because they have become familiar by study and experience with the symptoms of mental diseases and therefore qualified to assist the court or jury in reaching a correct conclusion.Such opinions may be based either upon facts within their personal knowledge or upon a hypothesis disclosed by the testimony of others.Quimby v. Greenhawk,166 Md. 335, 171 A. 59;Mathiesen Alkali Works v. Redden,177 Md. 560, 10...