Francis v. Francis

• Decision Date: 29 September 1943
• Docket Number: 161.
• Citation: 26 S.E.2d 907,223 N.C. 401
• Parties: FRANCIS v. FRANCIS et al.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

26 S.E.2d 907

223 N.C. 401

FRANCIS v. FRANCIS et al.

No. 161.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 29, 1943

This was an action to recover for services rendered defendants' intestate. Plaintiff's evidence tended to show that she was daughter-in-law of the decedent, lived in the home with him and performed needed personal services for him during several years preceding his death when he was in ill health following a paralytic stroke. Defendants' evidence tended to show the services were gratuitous, were in consideration of gifts to plaintiff and her husband, and were of less value than claimed.

In response to issue submitted to them the jury found that plaintiff rendered the services to defendants' intestate as alleged, and that at the time payment therefor was intended by the decedent and expected by the plaintiff. Substantial recovery was awarded.

From judgment on the verdict, defendants appealed.

Gay & Midyette, of Jackson, for plaintiff.

Eric Norfleet, of Jackson, Lloyd J. Lawrence, of Murfreesboro, and R. Jennings White and Russell H. Johnson, both of Conway, for defendants.

DEVIN Justice.

Defendants contend that their motion for judgment of nonsuit should have been allowed, for the reason that the plaintiff was the daughter-in-law of the decedent, living with him in his home as a member of the family, and hence was under obligation to render household and personal services without additional compensation. They point out that there was no express contract to pay, and that under the circumstances the legal presumption that the services were gratuitously rendered has not been successfully rebutted.

The legal principles involved seem to have been well settled by the decisions of this court. The general rule that the performance of valuable services for one who knowingly and voluntarily accepts the benefit thereof raises the implication of a promise to pay, is subject to the modification that, where certain family relationships exist services performed by one member of the family for another within the unity of the family, are presumed to have been rendered in obedience to a moral obligation and without expectation of compensation. Winkler v. Killian, 141 N.C. 575, 54 S.E. 540, 115 Am.St.Rep. 694; Brown v Williams, 196 N.C. 247, 145 S.E. 233; Keiger v. Sprinkle, 207 N.C. 733, 178 S.E. 666. "But," said Stacy, C.J., in Nesbitt v. Donoho, 198 N.C. 147, 150 S.E. 875, "this is a presumption which may be overcome or rebutted by proof of an agreement to pay, or of facts and circumstances permitting the inference that payment was intended on the one hand and expected on the other."

In the most recent case in which this question was considered Landreth v. Morris, 214 N.C. 619, 200 S.E. 378, 381, the court declined to give effect to the presumption of gratuitous service in a case where the services were rendered by a daughter-in-law to her father-in-law. Justice Seawell, delivering the opinion, uses this language: "As to the feme plaintiff, the...