Holland v. Riggs

• Court: Texas Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Hodges
• Citation: Holland v. Riggs, 116 S.W. 167, 53 Tex.Civ.App. 367 (Tex. App. 1909)
• Decision Date: 21 January 1909
• Parties: HOLLAND v. RIGGS.<SMALL><SUP>†</SUP></SMALL>

Page 167

116 S.W. 167

HOLLAND v. RIGGS.^†

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

January 21, 1909.

Rehearing Denied February 25, 1909.

Error from District Court, Travis County; V. L. Brooks, Judge.

Action by Mary Belle Riggs, by her next friend, against R. B. Holland. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

Dowell & Dowell, for plaintiff in error. Z. T. Fulmore, for defendant in error.

HODGES, J.

Mary Belle Riggs, who appears in this case by next friend as defendant in error, was an aged colored woman, whose exact age at the time of this suit was not accurately known, but is alleged to have been between 70 and 80 years. She was the owner of lots Nos. 9 and 10 in block 171 in the city of Austin, and some other property not necessary here to mention. She had raised from infancy the party, Nancy McQueen, who appears in this suit as her next friend. Nancy McQueen claimed to be the niece of Mary Belle Riggs, and her nearest relative in Texas. About the year 1900 the plaintiff in error, Holland, became acquainted with Mary Belle Riggs, which acquaintance for some reason subsequently ripened into an intimate friendly relation between the parties, so much so that Holland took up his abode with the Riggs woman and continued thereafter to live at her house. Holland was about 39 or 40 years of age, and was at the time he went to live with Mary Belle Riggs a married man, having a wife and several children in San Antonio. According to his testimony, Mary Belle Riggs took quite a fancy to him on account of his resemblance to a man by the name of Johnson, whom she had known in another state in her younger days and of whom she was very fond. Holland testifies that he remained at the home of Mary Belle Riggs as one of the family, looked after her property, and generally attended to her business affairs. On the 5th day of April, 1907, Mary Belle Riggs executed to Holland a deed to lot No. 9, of block 171, in the city of Austin, purporting to convey the lot in consideration of love and affection and $5 cash in hand paid. This deed was withheld from record for some time afterward. At this time Nancy McQueen had married and was living elsewhere. Upon learning that Holland had procured a deed from her alleged aunt, and also that her aunt had been induced to part with another valuable piece of property, described as lot No. 10, she instituted this suit, and, joined by her husband, as the next friends of Mary Belle Riggs, alleged substantially: The age of Mary Belle Riggs, the discrepancy between her age and that of Holland, and that Holland was an educated man in no way related by consanguinity or affinity to Mary Belle Riggs; that he was a married man living separate and apart from his wife and family; that he, knowing that Mary Belle Riggs was old and infirm, took up his residence at her home and had lived with her, and in various ways acquired an undue influence over her, so as to be able to control her in all her actions and business transactions, and for the purpose of getting possession of all of her property; that on the 5th day of July, 1907, he persuaded her to execute the deed to a valuable piece of property for $3,500 in cash, and to pay one W. S. Lee as a commission on the said sale the sum of $1,200, or some such large and unreasonable sum. The most of the remainder of the money was, in various ways detailed in the petition, alleged to have been appropriated by Holland. It is further alleged that Mary Belle Riggs, being wholly incompetent to transact business, was on the 7th of April, 1907, induced to convey lot No. 9 in block 171 in the city of Austin, and on which she was living, to Holland, in consideration merely of love and affection and payment of $5; that at the time of the execution of these deeds, and long prior thereto, Mary Belle Riggs was mentally and physically incapacitated to understand what she was doing, and was utterly ignorant and unable to understand the nature of her action, and was induced and influenced by Holland to execute the deeds as aforesaid; that the property was at the time worth about $1,200; that later Holland induced her by the same methods to execute a deed to lot No. 10, which left her homeless and without anything to support her in her old age. It is further alleged that the deed executed on April 7, 1907, was concealed and kept off the record until a few days before filing this suit, for the purpose of keeping all the transactions secret, and in order to get possession of the entire estate of Mary Belle Riggs, and with the intent and purpose to appropriate all of it to the use and benefit of Holland, together with his confederates in fraud. It was charged that the deeds were void for the following reasons: Because Mary Belle Riggs was non compos mentis when they were executed; that they were wholly without consideration, either valuable or good; that the signature of Mary Belle Riggs was obtained for the evil purpose of depriving her of her entire estate and putting it in money, in order that Holland might get the control of and appropriate the same to his own use, and thus completely despoil her during her old age of her only means of support. The petition closed with a prayer asking that the deeds mentioned be canceled, and for a recovery of certain sums of money alleged to have been appropriated by Holland.

The plaintiff in error, Holland, plead in abatement of this action: That the suit could not be maintained by Nancy McQueen and her husband as next friends to Mary Belle Riggs, because the latter was sane at the time of the institution of the suit, and, further, because she had not been adjudicated a lunatic by any court of competent jurisdiction. He then filed general and special demurrers, a general denial, and special answers denying specifically the matters charged in the amended original petition. Later Holland filed a motion to dismiss the cause from the docket of the court because of the manner in which it was brought, and because Mary Belle Riggs herself had repudiated the action of McQueen and husband in bringing the suit as her next friends, and because she did not desire any such suit instituted, and for various other reasons not necessary here to mention. To this motion is appended a communication signed by Mary Belle Riggs and addressed to the judge of the court, in which she expresses a desire to have this particular cause dismissed, stating that it was brought without her knowledge and consent, and that the parties purporting to act for her have done so without any authority, and are not her friends, and she does not wish them to be. She further stated that in bringing this suit Nancy McQueen is doing so for the purpose of getting more money; that she is not crazy, but is competent to manage her property, and thinks that she should be left to dispose of it to suit herself, "without interference or outrages the balance of her life"; and adds: "I again wish to say that she (referring to Nancy McQueen) is no relation of mine whatever. I have done much for her, and I am truly sorry that she has acted in this way in the last years of my life, as I take it, alone for money."

On October 30, 1907, the plaintiff in error filed the following other motion to dismiss: "Now comes Robert B. Holland, the defendant herein, and represents to the court that he is now the husband of the plaintiff, Mary Belle Riggs; they have been united in marriage as such, and as such husband he has control of her property, and her estate vesting in him by law now dismisses this case; and asks that the same be dismissed at the cost of her next friends, Nancy McQueen and Woodman McQueen." On November 4th the plaintiff in error made a motion to strike out the pleadings of defendant in error for the following reasons: (1) That Mary Belle Riggs was at that time the wife of R. B. Holland, and was in no need of a next friend; (2) that the supplemental petition sets up causes of action that can only be presented in an original petition or amendment thereto; and (3) that the matter set up in the supplemental petition cannot be plead in an action for which the original suit was brought, and is nonjoinable in this case. These motions were overruled by the court.

The defendant in error filed what is styled "a supplemental petition," replying to the matters set up in the motion of Holland to dismiss on account of his having married Mary Belle Riggs, and, among other things, charged that the marriage was contracted secretly and clandestinely (stating facts upon which that conclusion is predicated), and at a time when Mary Belle Riggs was wholly incapable, mentally and physically, of entering into a marriage contract or any other contract requiring the exercise of reason and judgment, and was incapable of appreciating the effects and consequences of such an act as marriage; that by reason of the facts stated the marriage was wholly void, and that it was procured by the defendant with the especial intent and sole purpose of getting possession and control of the property of the said Mary Belle Riggs, in order that he might defeat the ends of justice in this case, and thus be enabled to despoil the said Mary Belle Riggs of all her property and appropriate the same to his own use and benefit; and concludes with a prayer that, in addition to the relief asked in the amended original petition, the pretended marriage be decreed as void and of no effect, and for general and special relief. To this supplemental petition the defendant filed demurrers and answers.

The court submitted to the jury the issue as to the mental condition of Mary Belle Riggs at the time she executed the deed in question and at the time of the trial, and also the further issue as to her capacity to understand the nature of the proceedings at the time she entered into the marital relation with Holland. The jury were instructed that if they believed Mary Belle Riggs was of unsound mind at the time the deed was...