Grove v. Todd

• Decision Date: 10 March 1875
• Parties: RUTH GROVE and SAMUEL GROVE v. BENJAMIN H. TODD, JESSE E. TODD, VACHEL B. TODD, CHARLES W. TODD, and others.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

41 Md. 633

RUTH GROVE and SAMUEL GROVE v. BENJAMIN H. TODD, JESSE E. TODD, VACHEL B. TODD, CHARLES W. TODD, and others.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 10, 1875

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for Frederick County, in Equity.

This appeal was taken by the complainants from a decree of the Court below dismissing their bill. The facts of the case are sufficiently stated in the opinion of this Court.

The cause was argued before BARTOL, C.J., STEWART, BOWIE, BRENT MILLER and ALVEY, J.

John J. Donaldson and Thomas Donaldson, for the appellants.

[The arguments of counsel, except as to the question of the validity of the deed in controversy, are omitted.--REP.]

The deed of the 29th of November, 1866, was not executed in the manner required by law to constitute it a valid conveyance. Intending to convey title to real estate situated in Frederick County, it was executed and acknowledged in Carroll County, where the grantors resided, before a justice of the peace for Frederick County. Therefore under the Maryland statutes, no estate passed to the grantees. Code Art. 24, secs. 1, 2, 3; Gittings' Lessee vs. Hall, 1 H. & J., 14; Hall vs Gittings' Lessee, 2 H. & J., 380; Byer vs. Etnyre & Besore, 2 Gill, 150; Cockey vs. Milne's Lessee, 16 Md., 200; Johnston vs. Canby, 29 Md., 215, 216.

Then, immediately on the death of Benjamin Todd, the title to this land, became vested in his heirs, subject to the widow's dower. If there had been a valuable consideration there would have been in those heirs a dry legal title, and the grantees could compel a conveyance by a bill for specific performance. But this was a mere voluntary deed; in favor of persons too, who stood in no legal relationship to either of the grantors. Certainly there was no meritorious consideration so far as Ruth Todd was concerned. Even where the consideration is that of love and affection to persons of the grantor's own family, specific performance will not be decreed of a contract or conveyance defectively executed; and imperfect deeds cannot be set up in equity, or reformed and corrected as against a married woman. 2 Kent Com., 465-6; 1 Story Eq. Jur., (9 th Ed.,) sec. 706 a, sec. 787, secs. 793 b, d; Pennington, Adm'r of Patterson vs. Gittings' Ex'r, 2 G. & J., 208, 217; 2 Scribner on Dower, 299; Martin vs. Dwelly, 6 Wend., 9; Purcell vs. Goshorn, 17 Ohio, 105.

The appellees, however, rely upon the Act of Assembly of 1867, ch. 160, passed after the death of Benjamin Todd, as validating the deed of the 29th of November, 1866; and the learned Judge below decided, that such was the effect of that Act. That Act is unconstitutional and void in all cases where Courts of Equity would not decree specific performance, which could not be done under the circumstances of the present case.

If the object of the Act was to give validity to all deeds whatever; among the rest, to mere voluntary deeds to which married women were parties, then it cannot accomplish that object. For that would be to divest vested rights. Good vs. Zercher, 12 Ohio, 364, 368; Silliman vs. Cummins, 13 Ohio, 116; Baugher vs. Nelson, 9 Gill, 299; Regents of University of Md. vs. Williams, 9 G. & J., 408; Thistle vs. Frostburg Coal Co., 10 Md., 129; Johns vs. Reardon, 11 Md., 465; Chesnut vs. Shane's Lessee, 16 Ohio, 599; Alter's Appeal, 67 Pa., 341.

Charles W. Ross and William A. Fisher, for the appellees.

The Act of 1867, ch. 160, was a constitutional exercise of power with respect to all deeds. A law is not unconstitutional merely because it divests vested rights. Baugher vs. Nelson, 9 Gill, 299; Watson vs. Mercer, 8 Peters, 88; Satterlee vs. Matthewson, 2 Peters, 413-14; Regents, &c. vs. Williams, 9 G. & J., 408.

There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States, or in the Bill of Rights or Constitution of Maryland, which takes from the Legislature the power to disturb vested rights. Baugher, et al. vs. Nelson, 9 Gill, 306.

An Act of Assembly is void if at all, not because it is condemned by some positive municipal law, to which it must yield, whatever may be the equities, but void only so far as it is contrary to the "first rules of right and justice;" rules, not rigid, but moulded to meet the circumstances of each case presented. Beach vs. Walker, 6 Conn., 197; Underwood vs. Lilly, 10 S. & R., 101; Goshorn vs. Purcell, 11 Ohio, N. S., 652.

The application of the Act to the deed in controversy, gratifies every rule of right and justice, it gratifies the intent of the donor, and defeats fraud and inhumanity. The Courts have expressed the same views in different language, when they say that there can be no vested right to do wrong. Baugher, et al. vs. Nelson, 9 Gill, 309; Foster vs. Essex Bank, 16 Mass., 245; State vs. Newark, 3 Dutcher, 197; Cooley's Cons. Limitations, (370,) (358,) 3 rd ed., margin.

Curative acts have never been considered as, in any sense an interference with vested rights. They merely cure informalities not affecting the substantial equities of parties. Cooley, (369) to (379;) Regents' Case, 9 G. & J., 413; Baugher, et al. vs. Nelson, 9 Gill, 306; Harrison vs. Harrison, 22 Md., 468; Shonk vs. Brown, 61 Penna. St. Rep., 327; Hollingsworth vs. McDonald, 2 H. & J., 236-7.

The whole object of an acknowledgment is to furnish evidence, and primarily, if not entirely, to the clerk, that he may be justified in admitting the instrument to record. The deed would have been good at the common law, without any acknowledgment, but the Legislature determined that the proof of its execution should be an acknowledgment before a particular officer. There is no vested right to have the rules of evidence remain unchanged. Cooley, (367,) (368,) 3 rd ed., side paging; Gibbs vs. Gale, 7 Md., 86-7.

That the acknowledgment is to be treated merely in the nature of proof, is further apparent from the passage by the General Assembly of the Act of 1868, ch. 325. Code, Art. 24, sec. 16.

The appellants conceded that the Act of Assembly would be sufficient to validate a deed which was based upon a valuable consideration, because they say, the defective instrument is evidence of an equity in the grantee, which might be enforced by a Court of Equity, while under the deed in controversy there is no equity which could be assisted. Preston vs. Fryer, 38 Md., 221.

There is no foundation for the distinction attempted, in the application of such Acts of Assembly, to deeds in which an equity does, and those in which it does not pass. Besides this, the Act of 1868 would give to the infants a standing in a Court of Equity, to enforce the deed, even if they had it not before; and it could be enforced against the heirs-at-law of Benjamin Todd, as well as against Benjamin Todd himself, and his wife, the complainant. We deny, however, that in this State, a Court of Equity would ever have declined to recognize an equity in the infants, under the circumstances of this case. The harsh rules of the common law with respect to illegitimate children have never prevailed in this State as in England. Pratt vs. Flamer, 5 Harr. & Johns., 20-21.

Courts of Equity will sometimes enforce a voluntary settlement in favor of illegitimate children. Marchioness of Annandale vs. Harris, 2 Peere Wm., 432; Bunn vs. Winthrop, 1 Johns. Ch., 338.

The complainants could not in any event have the benefit of the objection that the title of the heirs-at-law of Benjamin Todd had become vested prior to the passage of the Act. Harrison vs. Harrison, 22 Md., 468; Watson vs. Mercer, 8 Peters, 88.

ALVEY J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

There are but two questions presented by the record in this case. First, whether the defective or invalid acknowledgment of the deed of the 29th of November, 1866, by Benjamin Todd, and Ruth his wife, has been so far aided and cured by the Act of the Legislature of 1867, chapter 160, as to render the deed valid and effectual as against the wife to bar her right and claim to dower in the land attempted to be conveyed; and if such has been the effect of the Act of 1867, secondly, whether the wife Ruth was induced to sign or execute the deed under such circumstances of fraud and circumvention as will entitle her to relief from its operation.

The deed purports to convey a farm of about 1318 acres of land in Frederick county, to Benjamin H. Todd and Jesse E. Todd, children of Jesse Todd, deceased, the illegitimate son of Benjamin Todd, the grantor. The consideration expressed in the deed was the love and affection which the grantor, Benjamin Todd, bore to the grantees, whom he called his grand-children. The wife Ruth bore no blood relation whatever to these children. The deed, while it professes to have been executed and acknowledged in Frederick county, before a justice of the peace of that county, was in fact executed and acknowledged in Carroll county, where the grantor and his wife at the time resided, before a justice of the peace of Frederick county. Benjamin Todd, the grantor, died intestate in December, 1866, and his widow, one of the appellants, intermarried with Samuel Grove, the other appellant, some time in the summer of 1867. The bill is filed by the appellants to have the deed declared a nullity, and for the assignment of dower in the land attempted to be conveyed. A large mass of proof has been introduced, reflecting upon the question of fraud, but from the view we have of the case it will become unnecessary to determine whether the allegations of fraud be fully sustained or not.

1. As to the question of the defective or invalid acknowledgment of the deed.

That the deed is wholly inoperative and void, as against the wife without the aid of the Act of the Legislature of 1867, chapter 160, has not been denied, or in any manner controverted; but it is insisted by the appellees that ...