Graham v. Stanton

• Decision Date: 02 January 1901
• Parties: GRAHAM v. STANTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

177 Mass. 321

58 N.E. 1023

GRAHAM v. STANTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 2, 1901

COUNSEL

J. W. Corcoran, D. B. Ruggles, and J. F. McDonald for plaintiff.

Gargan & Keating, for defendant.

OPINION

HOLMES C.J.

This is an action to recover for services rendered by the plaintiff in the household of John Stanton, the defendant's intestate, from the time that she entered it, a little girl 8 years old, in 1870, until 1884, and later between 1890 and 1893. Stanton took the plaintiff from an orphans' home and treated and spoke of her as his adopted daughter. She received her support and was sent to school, and did domestic work in return. At 18 she married, but for three years she kept on without change. Then she moved into the next house, but performed services from time to time until Stanton died, in 1892. There was a break, however, from 1884 to 1890. The case is here on exceptions, of which it is enough to mention one to a ruling that the items through 1884 were barred by the statute of limitations; others to refusals to rule that, if the plaintiff rendered her services in the belief that she was Stanton's adopted daughter, and that belief was due to false representations by Stanton, she could recover fair compensation; and one to a further ruling that a new promise--of which we shall speak later--did not help the plaintiff as to the items barred.

It would be a strong thing to say that an actual contract to pay for services could be inferred from the conduct of one who takes a child into his household under the name of daughter. The fact of his calling her so implies that he is not purporting to enter into relations with her on a business footing. See Mulhern v. McDavitt, 16 Gray, 404; Livingston v. Hammond, 162 Mass. 375, 38 N.E. 968; Kirchgassner v. Rodick, 170 Mass. 543, 49 N.E. 1015. But, if the law were otherwise, the statute of limitations would be a bar to the items through 1884, and there was no fraudulent concealment of the cause of action. The only fraud suggested is that Stanton falsely represented that the plaintiff was his adopted daughter. This representation was not a concealment of the cause of action on a contract actually made, which, of course, if made, the plaintiff must be taken to have known. There is no ground, either, for saying that the services before 1884 were items in a mutual account current.

The ground on which the plaintiff would have to rely is that there were fraudulent representations made by Stanton to the plaintiff concerning her status, which, if true, would exclude a contract, and which, therefore, did exclude an actual contract; that, as these representations were false the law would imply a contract by fiction in aid of justice; and that the cause of action on this implied contract was fraudulently concealed by the combined effect of the original fraud and of the silence which followed it. Bank v. Perry, 144 Mass. 313, 11 N.E. 81. With regard to this contention it is enough to say that, if there was any evidence of fraud in the statements made,--a conclusion which could be reached only by the harshest interpretation of words which seem only to have expressed...