Hanson v. Urner, 86

• Decision Date: 18 February 1955
• Docket Number: No. 86,86
• Citation: 206 Md. 324,111 A.2d 649
• Parties: Mary Katherine Heggan HANSON v. Francis H. URNER, coexecutor of the estate of Lora A. Hammaker, deceased, et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 324

206 Md. 324

111 A.2d 649

Mary Katherine Heggan HANSON v. Francis H. URNER, coexecutor of the estate of Lora A Hammaker, deceased, et al.

No. 86.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 18, 1955.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing March 16, 1955.

Bernard M. Savage, Baltimore, and E. Stuart Bushong, Hagerstown (Irving Schwartzman, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Francis H. Urner, Hagerstown (D. K. McLaughlin, Hagerstown, on the brief), for appellees.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

DELAPLAINE, Judge.

This suit was brought in the Circuit Court for Washington County by Mrs. Mary Katherine Heggan Hanson, of Baltimore, against the executors of the estate of Lora A. Hammaker, deceased, and certain beneficiaries named in her will to obtain specific performance of an oral contract by which the testatrix agreed to leave certain real and personal property to complainant on condition that she would come to Hagerstown and serve as her housekeeper and nurse as long as she lived.

Complainant is not related to the testatrix; she had married a son of the testatrix but had been divorced. During the period between September, 1944, and March, 1946, when the testatrix was suffering with high blood pressure, myocardia degeneration, colitis and other ailments, complainant came to Hagerstown on week-ends about once or twice a month to stay with the testatrix and to help her with her household duties. On April 6, 1946, the testatrix was seized with a heart attack, and she asked Mrs. Ruth Irene Hook, whom she had known for some years and who often came to see her, to phone complainant and urge her to come to Hagerstown at once to help her. In compliance with the urgent appeal, complainant came to the home of the testatrix on April 7, and immediately entered upon the duties of housekeeper and nurse.

Complainant alleged that the testatrix promised to leave her the Potomac Edison Building on East Washington Street in Hagerstown and also her diamond ring in consideration for her services. She alleged that during the following three years and a half, with the exception of occasional visits to Baltimore, she devoted practically all of her time to the work of housekeeper and nurse; but that in October, 1949, the testatrix struck her with a chair, kicked her, threatened her with bodily harm on other occasions, called her vile names, and refused to allow her to enter the home by having the locks changed on the doors.

Complainant was prevented from testifying by the Evidence Act, which provides that in actions or proceedings by or against executors, administrators, heirs, devisees, legatees or distributees of a decedent as such, in which judgments or decrees may be rendered for or against them, no party to the cause shall be allowed to testify as to any transaction had with, or statement made by the testator or intestate, unless called to testify by the opposite party, or unless the testimony of such testator or intestate shall have already been given in evidence. Code 1951, art. 35, § 3; Price v. McFee, 196 Md. 443, 77 A.2d 11; Ewell v. Landing, 199 Md. 68, 85 A.2d 475. However, complainant produced a number of intimate friends of the testatrix, who testified to declarations of the testatrix concerning the contract.

Mrs. Hook testified that the testatrix informed her about a week or two before she was stricken with her heart attack that she had made her will and had left the Potomac Edison Building to complainant. She recalled that the testatrix had remarked that 'she had asked Cassie (the name by which Mary Katherine was familiarly known) to remain by her side, and she knew she could depend on Cassie as long as she lived.' She added that Cassie said 'Yes' to the offer of the testatrix. She further testified that the testatrix told her about a dozen times afterwards that complainant would get the building. 'It was like a repeating record,' the witness said, 'because it was really tiresome to listen to it.'

Dr. Samuel Robert Wells, who had been the testatrix's physician for at least ten years, testified that in December, 1945, she asked him what he thought of her idea of trying to get Cassie to come and stay with her. He told her: 'Yes, I think you should have somebody with you, and I think it would be a big help to you, and I think you need it.' The doctor also definitely testified that the testatrix told him: 'I am going to leave Cassie the Potomac Edison Building if she will come and stay with me and she will take care of me.' He further testified that a short time later she told him that she had made her will and left the Potomac Edison Building and her diamond ring to complainant.

Mrs. Naomi Hearon, who had known the testatrix for 40 years and had often visited her, testified that the testatrix told her that she wanted Cassie to stay with her all the time. Mrs. Hearon also recalled that the testatrix stated that she was not paying complainant any salary, but had arranged to take care of her later.

The testimony of these and other witnesses indicating that the testatrix had made a definite agreement with complainant was buttressed by the introduction into evidence of a copy of a will made by the testatrix on March 14, 1946, which left the Potomac Edison Building and her jewelry to complainant. A carbon copy of the will was produced by Edward Oswald, Jr., who had been the testatrix's attorney for many years.

On October 31, 1947, the testatrix made a codicil reaffirming the devise of the Potomac Edison Building and the bequest of the jewelry to complainant. A carbon copy of the codicil was likewise produced by Mr. Oswald and identified by him.

It appears from the evidence that complainant performed the duties of housekeeper and nurse for the testatrix from April, 1946, to October, 1949. She bought and cooked the food, washed and ironed, and kept the house clean. She also performed the duties of a nurse. In telling about those duties Dr. Wells testified as follows: 'She gave Mrs. Hammaker her medicine, looked after her, helped her to the bathroom, kept her clean, washed her, kept her bed clean, * * * saw that she had food, gave her medicine right along.'

As time went on complainant's duties became increasingly arduous and disagreeable Dr. Wells stated that the testatrix was a 'difficult person,' and that in the fall of 1948 she began to deteriorate mentally. He stated that she was afflicted with hysteria. This is a psychoneurotic disorder characterized by extreme emotionalism involving disturbances of the psychic, sensory, motor, vasomotor and visceral functions, and by anxiety, exaggeration of the effects of sensory impressions and various other morbid effects due to autosuggestion. By the middle of January, 1949, according to the doctor, the testatrix would often become delirious and 'would see things in the windows and the walls, and claim that somebody was trying to get in, and she would have locks on her doors, instead of one lock she would have two padlocks.' The doctor gave the following description of her condition:

'She got so that she was hilarious and she would yell, she would walk around, stagger around through the house, beat things with her cane, the walls and doors. She tried to jump out of the front window there, until they had to nail those down, and she would just be in one room, and be yelling, the first thing you knew she would get up and stagger over to another room beating on the wall over there. * * * One time she told me that the angels were boring holes through the ceiling and throwing nickels in, and I was stealing the nickels; and then another time she accused me of stealing her nails. She had a keg of nails down the hall underneath in a cupboard.'

Early in February, 1949, the testatrix's condition had become so wretched that it was impossible to take care of her in her home any longer. On February 7 she was taken to Riggs Cottage Sanitarium at Ijamsville. The Circuit Court adjudicated her mentally incompetent, and complainant was appointed her trustee.

Within a few months the testatrix demanded that she be released from the sanitarium, and her request was granted on April 29, 1949. After she was brought back to Hagerstown, she turned against complainant and also against Dr. Wells, her physician, Mr. Oswald, her attorney, and other friends.

In October, 1949, the testatrix petitioned the Court for a hearing to enable...