Johnson v. Merry Mount Granite Co.

• Decision Date: 15 November 1892
• Docket Number: 3,636.
• Parties: JOHNSON v. MERRY MOUNT GRANITE CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

53 F. 569

JOHNSON v. MERRY MOUNT GRANITE CO.

No. 3,636.

United States Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts.

November 15, 1892

John E Hanly, J. F. Libby, and W. B. Grant, for plaintiff.

James E. Cotter, for defendant.

PUTNAM Circuit Judge.

During the progress of this case on Thursday last it became apparent that very important questions of law arose which might take the case from the jury, or, if it went to the jury, would fundamentally affect the rules on which it would be submitted. Therefore, the jurors were excused until this morning, and on Friday the questions involved were carefully and thoroughly argued by counsel for the plaintiff and defendant. The conclusions which I have reached require me to express my views on only one question.

The defendant has offered a release by the plaintiff, which clearly covers this cause of action, and was executed September 18 or 19, 1891,-- a few days before the bringing of this suit, which was October 3, 1891. The execution of the release was duly proved by the attesting witnesses. It is conceded that simultaneously with the release the plaintiff received $310, and that at no time prior to the putting of the release in evidence was this $310, or any part of it repaid or tendered to the defendant. The plaintiff makes an offer to prove certain facts for the purpose of impeaching the release. He also offers to show that neither the plaintiff nor his counsel knew the terms of the release until it was introduced in evidence, and he 'now offers to return the money paid under the said agreement in writing together with interest from the date of payment. ' The first clause in the offer is in the following words 'That the alleged release is not the plaintiff's contract. ' This is too general in its terms to require the consideration of the court. The discharge, or paper of settlement, is under seal, and a release by a writing obligatory in due form of the most solemn character. Its execution was admittedly accompanied by the payment of a substantial sum of money, which went in fact into the hands of the plaintiff and his personal possession. There is no offer to prove that the instrument was not technically executed,-- that is to say, was not signed, sealed, and delivered by the plaintiff; or that he in fact signed his name to one piece of paper, substituted by fraud for another which he supposed he was signing and intended to sign. Neither is there any effort to prove legal duress, nor anything else which, according to the ordinary rules of the common law, would prevent this release from being held as the plaintiff's deed, unless it be the matters which I will hereafter consider.

In Trambly v. Ricard, 130 Mass. 259, cited by the plaintiff, the supreme court of this state seems to hold that, in a common-law suit, the party executing a deed may disaffirm it by showing that his signature was obtained by fraud; but the only federal case cited in that opinion is Selden v. Myers, 20 How. 506, which was in equity, and all the cases which I have been able to find, decided by the supreme court of the United States, have been in equity. Some of them will be referred to further hereafter. In this connection I will observe that the plaintiff cites Massachusetts Statutes of 1883, c. 223, Sec. 14. The effect of this citation is against the plaintiff, and not in his favor; as it shows that it is still the law in Massachusetts that defenses which are ordinarily valid only in equity, cannot be set up in common-law courts in this state without statute authority. This statute, being limited to the superior court, is not a general rule of practice in Massachusetts tribunals, by which the federal courts are bound. Moreover, the law seems to be well settled that the federal courts are not bound by the local practice dividing jurisdiction between common-law courts and courts sitting in equity.

There are only two questions: First, whether the release is void or voidable on the ground that the plaintiff was of unsound mind as known to the law; and, second, whether it is voidable on the ground that the plaintiff was of weak intellect enfeebled by the injuries which he received, and was imposed on, or by any improper methods induced to make an adjustment for an inadequate consideration. So far as the former is concerned, it must be shown that the plaintiff was non compos mentis,-- that is, unsound in some one of the phases known to the law; and also that his unsoundness was of a character which prevented him from understanding the nature of the transaction resulting in the release. If this mental condition existed with the qualifications stated, it seems to be the law of Massachusetts that it can be set up as a defense to the release, without either tendering or returning the consideration. The plaintiff's offer to prove does not cover the proposition of mental unsoundness, or non compos mentis,...