Hinckley v. Town of Barnstable
| Decision Date | 28 May 1942 |
| Citation | 311 Mass. 600,42 N.E.2d 581 |
| Parties | CURTIS B. HINCKLEY, executor, v. TOWN OF BARNSTABLE. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
April 10, 1942.
Present: FIELD, C.
J., DONAHUE, DOLAN COX, & RONAN, JJ.
Equity Jurisdiction, Mistake. Payment. Volunteer. The facts that upon a town's making a claim under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c 117,
Section 5, upon the executor of the will of one to whom it had rendered old age assistance under c. 118A, the executor on the advice of counsel and upon their being shown an opinion by the Attorney General to the effect that recovery could be had by the town repaid the amount of the assistance to the town, and that later, in an action between other parties, this court determined that a municipality was not entitled to require such reimbursement, did not warrant a conclusion that the reimbursement made by the executor was under a mistake of fact.
Findings that, when a town in good faith and without fraud made a claim upon an executor for reimbursement for assistance rendered his testate and threatened suit therefor, the executor, without seeking an adjudication of his liability by any court, made the demanded payment under advice of counsel, did not warrant a conclusion that the payment was not voluntary.
PETITION IN EQUITY, filed in the Probate Court for the county of Barnstable on June 3, 1941.
The case was heard by Campbell, J., and in this court was submitted on briefs.
C. C. Paine, Town Counsel, for the respondent. H. L. Murphy, for the petitioner.
This is a petition in equity brought in the Probate Court to require the respondent to repay money paid by the petitioner for old age assistance rendered to his testatrix during her lifetime. The petition alleges, among other things, that the money was paid under the mistaken belief that the petitioner was obliged to pay it, but that, as matter of law, he was not. The respondent admits that the petitioner paid the money, and alleges that from the amount that it received it has paid the Federal government and the Commonwealth $565.33, "in accordance with the law and statutes in such case made and provided." The decree ordered the respondent to repay the sum that the judge found had been paid to it for old age assistance was rendered under the provisions of G. L. (Ter Ed.) c. 118A. The respondent appealed. The judge made a report of material facts (G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 215, Section 11). He found that old age assistance was rendered and that, after the petitioner's appointment as executor, the town officials, relying upon G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 117, Section 5, demanded reimbursement and threatened to bring suit against the petitioner if he did not pay. The petitioner thereupon petitioned the Probate Court for license to sell real estate for $5,250, and, after consulting counsel as to the liability of the estate for the amount of old age assistance furnished, paid the respondent's claim. The officials of the respondent, in making the claim for reimbursement, relied upon an opinion of the Attorney General to the effect that the town could recover for such old age assistance, and this opinion was shown to the petitioner and his counsel, and payment was then made by the petitioner. When the respondent's claim was presented and paid, there had been no judicial determination brought to the attention of the parties as to whether the respondent could legally claim reimbursement for sums paid under said c. 118A. After the decision in the case of Worcester v. Quinn, 304 Mass. 276 , the petitioner demanded repayment of the sum he had paid, and, upon payment being refused, he brought this petition. The judge found that the mistake made was not purely a question of law, but was a mutual mistake of fact as well as of law, and that the payment was not a voluntary one, but that the petitioner acted as "any ordinary prudent man would have acted under the circumstances."
The report of material facts is to be regarded as a finding of all the material facts upon which the judge's decision was founded. Topor v. Topor, 287 Mass. 473 , 476. The evidence is not reported, and the ultimate findings, and those embodied in the decree itself, are conclusive unless subsidiary findings reported by the judge are inconsistent therewith and show that the decree is wrong as matter of law. Maguire v. Bliss, 304 Mass. 12, 13. There is no room for any implication of further findings, Birnbaum v. Pamoukis, 301 Mass. 559 , 562, and upon this record it is for this court to determine whether the decree entered was correct upon the facts reported. Sears v. Childs, 309 Mass. 337 , 339.
Although the judge found that the "mistake made was not purely a question of law but was a mutual mistake of fact as well as of law," his next finding in order is that the petitioner gave up property of the estate "through misapprehension or mistake of the law and that the . . . [respondent] has benefited by this mistake." The decree, however, contains the statement that the payment was made "through a mutual mistake of law and fact." We are of opinion that the subsidiary findings do not warrant the ultimate conclusion that there was a mistake of fact. The only subsidiary findings in this connection are that the board of public welfare of the respondent rendered old age assistance to the deceased in her lifetime; that after the petitioner was appointed, "the town officials," relying upon G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 117, Section 5, demanded reimbursement and threatened to bring suit against the petitioner if he did not pay; that, after the petitioner consulted counsel "as to the liability of the estate," he paid; and that an opinion of the Attorney General to the effect that the respondent could recover was shown to the petitioner and his counsel.
A fact as distinguished from the law may be taken as that out of which the point of law arises, that which is asserted to be or not to be, and is to be presumed or proved to be or not to be, for the purpose of applying or refusing to apply a rule of law. The facts found were that old age assistance had been rendered; that the Attorney General had given an opinion on the right of the respondent to recover, and the question was whether, as a legal consequence of these facts, the petitioner was liable. The repayment was made on November 6, 1938, and the opinion in Worcester v. Quinn, 304 Mass. 276 , was not rendered until November 9, 1939. (See now St. 1941, c. 729, Section 5.) The fact, however, that the court had not been called upon to decide the question of law that confronted the petitioner in the case at bar so that the right of the respondent to recover had never been judicially determined, does not make that question any the less one of law. See Cochrane v. Forbes, 267 Mass. 417 , 421. It seems apparent that the payment by the petitioner was made under the mistaken belief that he was bound to pay, and he can hardly contend that if he had found out what the law was soon enough, and consequently would not have paid, there would have been any mistake of fact involved. In Alton v. First National Bank of Webster, 157 Mass. 341 , it was said, at page 344, that so far as that case was concerned, it did not matter whether the mistake was one of fact or of law. "For even a common mistake as to a fact, but for the supposed existence of which the plaintiff would not have come into the transaction, as the defendant knew, would not warrant a recovery, when, as here, the fact was a matter equally open for the inquiry and judgment of both parties, and the defendant had a right to assume that the plaintiff relied wholly on his own means of information."
The petitioner relies upon the case of Reggio v. Warren, 207 Mass 525 . We are of opinion, however, that the cases are distinguishable. In the Reggio case, the parties were in confidential relations with each other. The trustees of a will under which the plaintiff was a beneficiary gave him a note for money that was due, and the plaintiff executed a release. Thereafter it was decided by this court that the note was void because the trustees had no right to make it, although all parties believed that the note was valid. It was held that the plaintiff was entitled to have the release rescinded. It was pointed out that when the note was given the trustees were already under a liability to the plaintiff to pay him what was due, that they fully intended, when they gave...
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