Gerrish v. Chambers

• Decision Date: 11 January 1937
• Citation: 189 A. 187
• Parties: GERRISH v. CHAMBERS et al. (two cases).
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

189 A. 187

GERRISH

v. CHAMBERS et al.(two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 11, 1937.

Appeal from Superior Court, Androscoggin County, in Equity.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Androscoggin County, at Law.

Action by Lester P. Gerrish as executor under the will of Mary R. Smith, against Marion M. Chambers and the First National Bank of Lewiston, trustee, and suit by the executor against Marion M. Chambers and James E. Monroe, heard together by a single justice by agreement.On exception to ruling granting plaintiff judgment in the action, and on appeal from decree for complainant in the suit.

Exception overruled; appeal dismissed; decree affirmed.

Argued before DUNN, C. J, and THAXTER, STURGIS, BARNES, HUDSON, and MANSER, JJ.

Alice M. Parker and Ralph W. Crockett, both of Lewiston, for plaintiff.

Berman & Berman, of Lewiston, for defendants.

STURGIS, Justice.

These cases, the one at law and the other in equity, by agreement were heard together by a single justice sitting in vacation as permitted by the laws of this jurisdiction.The action at law comes forward on exceptions and the equity suit on appeal.Nos. 105 and 106 have been assigned to these cases on the docket of this court.They will be considered in reverse order.No. 106—Equity.

Lester P. Gerrish, Executor, v. Marion M. Chambers and James E. Monroe.

The complainant, Lester P. Gerrish, in his capacity as executor under the last will and testament of Mary R. Smith, late of Lisbon, Me, deceased, seeks in this action to impress a trust upon and recover $3,500 or property into which it has been converted, which it is alleged the defendant, Marion M. Chambers, obtained from the testatrix, Mary R. Smith, by fraud and undue influence.The sitting justice, hearing the cause on bill, answer, and replication, ordered the defendants to forthwith pay the complainant the full amount claimed with interest, otherwise execution to issue.

The printed case shows that on July 2, 1934, Mary R. Smith, a widow, eighty-two years old suffering from a rectal cancer of long standing and requiring constant nursing and regular medical attendance, through arrangements made by her family physician, entered the private hospital maintained and operated at Lisbon Falls, Me, by the defendantMarion M. Chambers.It was arranged that the defendant Chambers, who was a trained and registered nurse, should personally care for the testatrix and that the charges for her board and care should be $25 a week for the first two weeks and $35 a week thereafter.Medical and surgical supplies were to be paid for by the patient.The nurse, Mrs. Chambers, was an entire stranger to the testatrix when she came to the hospital and her care and the charges to be made were arranged on a strictly business basis.Mrs. Smith then had property aggregating more than $10,000 in value, the larger part of which was in the form of deposits in local or nearby banks.Receipted vouchers exhibited at the hearing indicate that she paid all her current bills, including the hospital and nurse's charges, either in advance or as they became due.

After Mrs. Smith was admitted to this hospital, her disease, then in advanced stages, progressed rapidly.The evidence clearly indicates that there was a gradual and progressive weakening of her mental and physical processes.She realized that death was approaching.Within a few weeks after her admission, her condition was such that it was necessary for her to use opiates, and tincture of opium was regularly prescribed by her physician in increasing doses and administered by the nurse.

From the time Mrs. Smith entered this hospital, she was entirely dependent upon the defendantMarion M. Chambers for care, attention, and assistance in the few business matters which she undertook.Her nearest relatives were two granddaughters of whom she had been very fond and had given substantial presents, who apparently continued in her good graces and were the sole beneficiaries of a substantial part of her property under a will she had previously executed and had never revoked, but they were young girls living in Methuen, Mass, and unable to care for the testatrix or often visit her.She had cousins who called occasionally, but, like her friends and neighbors, were not regularly available for advice or assistance.The nurse, Marion M. Chambers, her sisterGladys Nickerson, also a patient in the hospital, and a cousin, James E. Monroe, named defendant in this action, all strangers, were the persons with whom Mrs. Smith was in regular contact and association.

On October 5, 1934, Mary R. Smith, signed an order drawn upon her savings deposit in the Manufacturers National Bank of Lewiston, Me, for the sum of $3,500 payable to herself or order.The body of the order was in the handwriting of the defendantMarion M. Chambers.It was signed however, by Mrs. Smith, who also wrote below her signature, "October 5th, 1934.Lisbon Falls Maine.Please send me a cashiers check."On the same day, Mrs. Chambers presented this order at the bank on which it was drawn, and, when asked what Mrs. Smith was going to do with this money by the assistant cashier, as he says, replied, "I don't know, but she is all right."Obtaining the cashier's check, Mrs. Chambers brought it back to the hospital where Mrs. Smith indorsed on it, "Pay only to Marion Chambers."As soon as the check was indorsed, Mrs. Smith gave it to Mrs. Chambers, who forthwith returned to Lewiston and deposited it in her own savings account which she carried in the First National Bank of Lewiston.On October 22, 1934, Mrs. Smith died.Eighteen days later, on November 9, 1934, Mrs. Chambers drew $3,500 from her savings account, purchased a house in Lisbon Falls, and caused a deed thereof to be given to her cousin, the defendantJames E. Monroe, who on the same day executed a will devising the property back to her at his death.

The complainant charges that the money turned over to the defendantMarion M. Chambers by his testatrix was obtained by fraud and undue influence and the transaction was unconscionable.This is the ground upon which the learned justice sitting below rendered his decree.His findings of fact are not to be reversed upon appeal unless they are clearly wrong.The burden to show the error is upon the appellant.Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution v. Johnston and Jose, 133 Me. 445, 180 A. 322;Meader v. Cummings, 131 Me. 445, 163 A. 792;Adams v. Ketchum, 129 Me. 212, 151 A. 146;Merryman v. Jones, 126 Me. 130, 131, 136 A. 667.

Fraud in equity includes all willful or intentional acts, omissions, or concealments by which an undue or unconscientious advantage is taken over another.Undue influence is a species of constructive fraud.Whenever two persons have come into such a relation that confidence is necessarily reposed by one and the influence which naturally grows out of that confidence is possessed by the other and this confidence is abused or the influence is exerted to obtain an advantage at the expense of the confiding party, the person so availing himself of his or her position will not be permitted to retain the advantage.

The term "Fiduciary or confidential relation" embraces both technical fiduciary relations and those informal relations which exist whenever one person trusts in in and relies on another.And the rule is that, whenever a fiduciary or confidential relation exists between the parties to a deed, gift, contract, or the like; the law implies a condition of superiority held by one of the parties over the other, so that in every transaction between them by which the superior party obtains a possible benefit equity presumes the existence of undue influence and the invalidity of the transaction, and casts upon that party the burden of proof of showing affirmatively by clear evidence that he or she acted with entire fairness and the other party acted independently, with full knowledge and of his own volition free from undue influence.Burnham v. Heselton, 82 Me. 495, 500, 20 A. 80, 9 L.R.A. 90;Eldridge v. May, 129 Me. 112, 116, 150 A. 378;Mallett v. Hall, 129 Me. 148, 153, 150 A. 531.

The defendants insist that the money which Mrs. Chambers received from Mary R. Smith was a voluntary and unsolicited gift and attempt to sustain the validity of the transaction by the testimony of the following witnesses:

Gladys Nickerson, a sister of the defendantMarion M. Chambers, testifies that she came to her sister's hospital as a patient on Labor Day 1934 and stayed there until October 12th following, and, making the acquaintance of Mrs. Smith, who occupied the next room, visited her frequently and often sat with her on the piazza.She insists that from the time she arrived until October 7, 1934, Mrs. Smith was at all times mentally alert, interested in current events, and apparently entirely rational in her speech and actions.She claims that Mrs. Smith told her on several occasions that the nurse, Mrs. Chambers, had been very kind and attentive to her and that she was going to make her a good present, the amount not being stated, and on one of these occasions, speaking of her granddaughters, said she had plenty left for them.This witness insists that she was present in the forenoon of Friday, ...