Hunter v. Lafferty
| Decision Date | 05 May 1942 |
| Docket Number | 37412 |
| Parties | HUNTER v. LAFFERTY et al |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied June 17, 1942.
Tyree C. Derrick and Lloyd E. Boas, both of St. Louis, for appellant.
May & May, of Louisiana, for respondents.
May Hunter sought to compel specific performance of an oral contract by which she claims James G. Fleece agreed to will her certain real estate in consideration of her caring for him and performing certain services. The trial court found in favor of Word, the executor of Fleece's will, and Lafferty, the beneficiary under the will and a nephew by marriage of the deceased.
James Fleece was an elderly gentleman but possessed of a fine physique for his age and was a man of strong personality. After his wife died on April 2, 1937, he lived alone on his modern farm two or three miles from Louisiana, Missouri except for the first six months when Martin and Anna Lafferty lived with him.
The plaintiff, May Hunter, was about fifty years old and had lived in St. Louis and Clarksville the greater part of her life. She had been married twice and at the time of the trial was not living with her second husband.
In the summer of 1938 George and Etta Buskirk were operating a beer tavern in Louisiana and the plaintiff, May Hunter, came to visit them and remained to work for them. They lived over the tavern and she kept house for them and did some work in the tavern. She was paid $ 5 per week for her services. She had been acquainted with Etta Buskirk since Etta's first marriage in St. Louis eighteen years before. She worked for them about six weeks before applying to Fleece for a job as housekeeper. The Buskirks were going to sell their tavern and the plaintiff being without means they were anxious to find employment for her.
Mrs Buskirk said they heard Mr. Fleece wanted a housekeeper and so she suggested that May try to get the job. Mrs. Buskirk, her son by her first marriage, James Nelson, and May drove out to Fleece's farm one afternoon to apply for the job. They all testified they had never known him previously. James Nelson had lived with 'Mama May,' as he called her, when he was a child in St. Louis. He was seventeen at the time of the trial.
James testified that he went up to the house and told Mr. Fleece a lady wanted to talk to him. He came out to the car and May said she heard he wanted someone to work for him. He showed all of them through the house and said: '* * * if she would come out there and do what was right, that he didn't have any relatives, that she could have everything that he had.' May said she would think it over. They drove down the road a short distance, returned and she agreed to accept the job. On other occasions James said Fleece mentioned the agreement when he was out there. 'He mentioned it two or three times that she was doing fine, and that he liked the things she did and that everything he had was hers.'
Etta Buskirk testified that after Mr. Fleece showed them around through the house and they had been there a few minutes he said: '* * * he wanted someone that could come out there and stay and keep the house clean, and do the right thing; he said he didn't have anybody to leave the property to, and if he could get somebody to come out and do the right thing , he said he didn't have anybody to leave the property to, and if he could get somebody to come out and do the right thing, that everything would be hers at his death.' May told him she had a job and was making $ 5 a week and he told her he could do better than that if she would come out and take a chance. He said: 'If you come out here and do the right thing, this is all yours on my death.' Mrs. Buskirk went back out to the farm next day and asked him what he thought about May and he said: Later, after May had sprained her ankle, Mr. Fleece came to the tavern and told them about her fall and said: Mrs. Buskirk's first husband and May were first cousins.
George Buskirk had never seen Mr. Fleece until the evening of the day May had applied for the job, when he came to his tavern to take her out to the farm. They were talking and he was telling Mr. Fleece about her work around the tavern and Fleece said: George saw Mr. Fleece once or twice a week after May went there and once after he was shown around through the house Fleece put his arm on Mrs. Hunter's shoulder and said: 'Just think, when I am gone all this belongs to Mrs. Hunter.' He was also present the day Fleece came to the tavern after May had sprained her ankle and heard him say: '* * * she sure was going to get everything he had.'
Charles Hays was the plaintiff's son by her first marriage. He was thirty years old. He met Mr. Fleece twice in his life. Once, on August 21, 1938, he went out to the Fleece farm and his mother had then been there three or four days. Mr. Fleece was showing him around and he inquired whether or not his mother was going to stay out there and work and Fleece said: 'I have made an agreement with her if she stays out here and takes care of me until I die, I am going to will her everything I got.' In September Fleece, Mr. and Mrs. Buskirk and May made a trip to St. Louis and he asked Fleece if he had told his mother about the agreement or whether he was just kidding and Fleece said: 'Yes, I told her.'
The plaintiff's evidence, particularly from Mrs. Buskirk, was to the effect that before May went out to the farm Mr. Fleece wore dirty clothes and was not clean and his house was extremely dirty, but after she went there everything was cleaned up and Mr. Fleece wore clean clothes and his personal appearance was greatly improved. He appeared to be fond of May and she seemed to like and suit him.
The plaintiff's witnesses claimed that May was there on the farm caring for Mr. Fleece for six weeks before he died, while the defendants claimed she was only there for two weeks. At any rate, in the second or third week in October he was painting around the edge of the roof of his house when he fell from a ladder and was severely injured, dying a few days later in a hospital.
From the cross-examination of Mrs. Buskirk it appears that the other woman, mentioned by Mr. Buskirk, who had worked for Mr. Fleece and who ran around and drank was May Lusby the plaintiff's (May Hunter's) half-sister, though none of the plaintiff's witnesses had ever heard of him until they heard he wanted a housekeeper and took her out to apply for the job.
For the defendants Fleece's attending physician testified that after he was in the hospital May Hunter complained because the nurses would not admit her to his room. He told her that was his ruling and explained it was not best for him to have visitors and 'she told me that Mr. Fleece had told her if she stayed at his place until the time of his death and worked for him that he would give her his property and that she at that time did not have it in writing and wanted to get in to see Mr. Fleece, and I told her it was against his better welfare to see anyone at that time except the nurses and his doctor; that is the sum and substance of what was said at that time.'
The evidence of other defense witnesses was to the effect that Mr. Fleece had told them he had employed the plaintiff as his housekeeper and was paying her a salary.
On this appeal the plaintiff contends that the trial court's decree was for the wrong party and contrary to the weight of the evidence. She contends she was entitled to a decree for specific performance because the evidence shows the contract was made as alleged, that it was a fair contract, and fully performed by the plaintiff's rendition of services of a nature incapable of measurement by pecuniary standards.
There is and can be no doubt but that decedent's oral contracts in consideration of support given or services rendered are valid and enforceable. Though the relief asked and granted is frequently called specific performance, as a matter of fact it is simply a court of equity operating in an analogous manner on a matter properly within its cognizance. The cases classified according to the various...
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