Horner v. Bell
| Decision Date | 10 January 1906 |
| Parties | HORNER et al. v. BELL et al. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City; George M. Sharp Judge.
Suit by Elizabeth H. Bell and others against Albert N. Horner and another. From a decree for plaintiffs, defendants appeal. Affirmed.
Argued before McSHERRY, C.J., and BRISCOE, BOYD, PAGE, PEARCE JONES, SCHMUCKER, and BURKE, JJ.
Charles F. Harley, for appellants.
Joseph B. Seth, for appellees.
This is an appeal from a decree of circuit court No. 2 of Baltimore City, which set aside and annulled certain deeds to which specific reference is made in the decree, and the nature and purport of which will appear in the following statement of the facts which gave rise to the controversy involved in the case: Elizabeth B. Hammersley, a widow, and a resident of the city of Baltimore, died in that city on or about the 4th day of June, 1902. In her lifetime she had been possessed of considerable property, real, leasehold, and personal. About a week after her death, on the 13th day of June, 1902, the deeds dealt with by the decree in the case were left for record in the clerk's office of the superior court of Baltimore City, which was the proper place for such instruments to be recorded, by Albert N. Horner, one of the appellants in this case. She left as her heirs and next of kin a daughter, Mary D. Horner, one of the appellants, and wife of her coappellant, Albert N. Horner; a son, William H Hammersley; and two grandchildren, Elizabeth H. Bell, and George D. Hammersley, the appellees, who are the children of a son who predeceased her. The deeds, which are the subject of controversy, four in number, all purport to have been executed and acknowledged by the deceased, Elizabeth B. Hammersley, on the 29th day of July, 1899, and were all left for record by Horner on the 13th day of June, 1902, and were noted consecutively as having been received at 2:15, 2:16, 2:17, and 2:18 o'clock p.m. One of them conveyed to Elizabeth H. Bell, one of the appellees, "in consideration of five dollars and other good and valuable consideration," a certain leasehold property on Pearl street in the city of Baltimore for life, on condition "that she promptly pays all necessary expenses on said property within sixty days after their maturity," and if this condition "be fulfilled then after the death of the said Elizabeth Hammersley Bell ------- to go to and become the property of each of the children of the said Elizabeth Hammersley Bell as may be living at the time of her death and to the descendants of any deceased child." But if there shall be a failure "to pay said necessary expenses within sixty days after their maturity then the property [assigned by the deed] is to immediately vest in and become the property of Mary D. Horner wife of Albert N. Horner free of all trusts and uses," etc. Another conveyed for a like consideration a certain other leasehold property on Pearl street, said city, to George D. Hammersley, the other appellee, for life, upon the same condition, that he pay all necessary expenses within 60 days after their maturity, and, if this condition be fulfilled, at his death, the property "to go to and become the property of Mary D. Horner wife of Albert N. Horner"; but, upon a failure to comply with the said condition upon the part of the said George D. Hammersley, the property was to vest immediately in the said Mary D. Horner, "free of all trusts and uses," etc. Another of these deeds conveyed, for a like consideration, to the appellant Mary D. Horner "all of the personal property goods and chattels and personalty contained in the two dwelling houses 108 North Green street and 2045 North Fulton avenue this [Baltimore] city therein belonging to the said Elizabeth B. Hammersley, to have and to hold," etc., "absolutely." The fourth one of the deeds in question is a conveyance to the appellant Albert N. Horner in the terms following: etc.
The appellees, as soon as they became aware of the deeds in question having been left for record, filed the bill in this case in the court below to have them set aside and annulled, alleging that they knew nothing of the said deeds "until they saw the notice of their having been recorded in the daily newspapers"; that the deeds purporting to have been executed to them were never delivered to nor accepted by them; that the property pretended to be conveyed to them was subject to heavy ground rents, was in a dilapidated condition, was located in a part of the city "which is steadily deteriorating in value," and that it was comparatively of "little or no value, while the estate and property so pretended to be conveyed to the said defendants, Albert N. Horner and Mary D. Horner, is of very large quantity and value"; that the deeds to the appellants were never legally delivered to them in the lifetime of the grantor; and that, if the said deeds were executed at all by the said deceased, they "were never intended to take effect in her lifetime, and are therefore null and void." They further charged that "Elizabeth B. Hammersley was advanced in age, being 77 years old, and was not only infirm in body, but was also, for a long time before her death, and at the time when said paper writings are alleged to have been executed, enfeebled and impaired in mind to such an extent as to render her unfit for the transaction of any business, and wholly incapable of making a valid deed or contract; that she was particularly susceptible to influences surrounding her, and, residing with the said Albert N. Horner and Mary D. Horner, her feebleness and incapacity were taken advantage of by them, and she was induced, influenced, and persuaded by said defendants -------, through fraud, misrepresentation, and undue influence practiced by them, to sign said paper writings," etc.
The question is whether, upon the record before us, these allegations of the appellees' bill are so far sustained as to justify the decree which is here under review. And this question is largely one of fact, as to which we are not aided by any direct proof going to the charges made in the bill as grounds of relief; but the irresistible inferences from the disclosures of the record leave no doubt as to the propriety of the decree. In reaching our conclusions the testimony which has been made the subject of exceptions has been laid out of the case. It will not be necessary, therefore, to notice these exceptions further. With the bill, making the allegations that have been set out, there were filed as exhibits certified copies of the deeds assailed; and from these, in connection with admitted facts already recited, it appears that the grantor in the deeds, Mrs. Hammersley conveyed away, and divested herself of, all of her property of every description, reserving to herself no part thereof, nor any interest therein; that the only specified consideration for this was a nominal one; that in making this disposition of all of her property none was granted to her only living son; that but a comparatively insignificant part was granted to her grandchildren, who, next to her son and daughters, had naturally the strongest claim upon her bounty; that what was conveyed to the grandchildren was hampered with an embarrassing and drastic condition; that the conveyance to her daughter embraced only the personal and household effects in the two dwelling houses named in the conveyance to her; that all the rest of her property of every description was in terms admitting of no exception granted to her son-in-law; and that, to emphasize the unnatural character of the disposition made of her property by the deeds in question, it appeared that the property thus disposed of had been conveyed to her by her husband, whose children and grandchildren received such small consideration at her hands. The deeds in themselves give no explanation of, and suggest no reason for, the remarkable dispositions of the property which they make. Confronted with charges thus made, and with disclosures thus appearing, it became the duty of the defendants by their answers to meet them with a full, frank, and direct statement to the court of all the facts and circumstances within their knowledge connected with and attending upon the transaction called in question, that it might be seen in its true and real character; and there is no reason to doubt that they would have met this duty, if they had seen in such facts and circumstances what would have gone to refute the charges made, and to explain conditions calculated to excite suspicion and to give rise...
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