Howd v. MacGregor
| Decision Date | 03 April 1925 |
| Citation | 102 Conn. 331,128 A. 518 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | HOWD ET UX. v. MACGREGOR. |
Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Leonard J. Nickerson Judge.
Action by Edward E. Howd and wife against Charles E. MacGregor administrator, to recover the reasonable value of services alleged to have been rendered by the plaintiffs to the defendant's intestate at his request and in consideration of his unfulfilled promise to execute a will in favor of the plaintiffs. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiffs appeal. No error.
Epaphroditus Peck and James T. Mather, both of Bristol, for appellants.
Philip Pond and Edwin S. Pickett, both of New Haven, for appellee.
The plaintiffs, husband and wife, are seeking to recover from the estate of the former's uncle compensation for services they rendered to him in his lifetime. From 1905 to 1909 they occupied a portion of his house as his tenants, and he paid them a small agreed sum every other week for their services to him. Thereafter they moved into the portion of the house occupied by him, lived there with their children until 1920, rent free, and continued to receive a small sum at stated intervals. They now claim further compensation from his estate, alleging that he promised at his death to secure to them and their children the greater part of his estate. Such a claim would naturally drive them to rely, as in fact in their complaint and largely in their evidence they did rely, upon expressions of the decedent which they say indicated an intent to compensate them at his decease ( Leahy v. Cheney, 90 Conn. 611, 615, 98 A. 132, L.R.A. 1917D, 809); and in the light of this situation, any ground to contend that the trial court, in its decision, imposed upon them the burden of proving an express contract, disappears. Its conclusion, that they had failed to prove a right to recover, is amply supported by the subordinate facts it has found. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the plaintiffs have any present standing in court, in view of the finding, not attacked by the appeal, that they were fully paid for what they did. They have, however, so zealously pressed upon our attention their motion to correct the finding in other respects, that we have given it careful consideration.
Largely the corrections they seek involve a finding that the decedent made to them certain statements indicative of an intent, at his decease, to make compensation to them over and above what he was paying them in his lifetime. In considering testimony as to statements of such a nature, put into the mouth of a decedent, it is necessary to remember that " there is nothing more difficult than for a witness to recollect the exact language used by another" (Church, C.J., in Williams v. Miner, 18 Conn. 464, 474); that the line of demarcation is shadowy between those expressions of a decedent which are meant and understood merely to denote an intention to give of his bounty, and those which may fairly arouse an expectation of compensation for services rendered, and often a change of a word or turn of a phrase may alter one into the other; and that in the attempted rehearsal of such statements, even where honesty reigns, one often finds evidence of the warping of self-interest. These are some of the cogent reasons why this court has said that claims such as the one before us must be carefully scanned and found established only upon clear and satisfactory proof that the services were rendered under a mutual understanding or agreement that compensation was to be made. Hoskins v. Saunders, 80 Conn. 19, 21, 66 A. 785. In this case, the burden now upon the plaintiffs is, however, even heavier, for in his memorandum of decision the trial judge states that for other reasons full credit could not be given to their testimony; and certainly even the cold record furnishes a basis upon which that conclusion may rest. The trial court disbelieved the testimony offered to prove the statements attributed to the decedent. One of the chief functions of the trial court is to pass upon the credit to be accorded to witnesses and its conclusion that they are not to be believed, this court has no...
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Doe v. Cuomo
...that triers of fact must use "caution and scrutinize the evidence with care before granting a recovery" and, citing Howd v. MacGregor, 102 Conn. 331, 334, 128 A. 518 (1925), he stressed that such claims should be found established only upon "clear and satisfactory proof." (Internal quotatio......
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...adopted; the claim should be "carefully scanned and found established only upon clear and satisfactory proof * * *." Howd v. MacGregor, 102 Conn. 331, 334, 128 A. 518, 520. The only ground of liability on the part of the defendant town alleged in the complaint was that it created and mainta......
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