Knowles v. Binford

• Decision Date: 18 January 1973
• Docket Number: No. 69,69
• Citation: 268 Md. 2,298 A.2d 862
• Parties: Florence C. KNOWLES et al. v. Lea Warner BINFORD et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 2

268 Md. 2

298 A.2d 862

Florence C. KNOWLES et al. v. Lea Warner BINFORD et al.

No. 69.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 18, 1973.

Carlyle Barton, Jr., Baltimore (Edgar H. Gans, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

William F. Mosner, Towson (Power & Mosner, Towson, on the brief), for appellees.

Argued before McWILLIAMS, SMITH and DIGGES, JJ., and RICHARD P. GILBERT and WILLIAM B. BOWIE, Special Judges.

WILLIAM B. BOWIE, Special Judge.

Appellee Lea Warner Binford (Lea) and Julia Muse Conquest (Julia) filed suit below in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, Judge Walter R. Haile presiding, for the purpose of having the second amendment of their late aunt's deed of trust declared invalid, alternatively on numerous grounds including mental incompetency and undue influence. The court, sitting in equity, concluded, after a hearing in open court, that the challenged amendment was procured through undue influence by either or both of the appellants, and was void and of no effect, excepting several purely administrative paragraphs which were ratified and confirmed. Appellants, Florence C. Knowles and her nephew Robert Alexander, have appealed seeking to have this Court reverse the circuit court on the ground that it was clearly in error. After review of the record, we think the court was not clearly in error and should, therefore, be affirmed.

Appellants have attacked Judge Haile's rulings at three stages of the hearing: first, his denial of appellants' (defendants below) motion to dismiss at the end of appellees' (plaintiffs below) case; second, his denial of the motion to dismiss at the end of the defendants' case; and third, the court's final determination of the existence of undue influence.

We believe that appellants' assignments of error for the denial of the motions are without substantial basis. Without going into detail at this juncture, there was more than sufficient evidence to sustain Judge Haile's rulings, Clark v. Stansbury, 49 Md. 346, 352 (1878).

The crux of appellants' argument is that a finding of undue influence was not justified in light of the law and facts as presented.

The law as regards a claim of undue influence was succinctly stated by Judge Hammond in Stockslager v. Hartle, 200 Md. 544, 547, 92 A.2d 363 (1952) when he wrote for the Court:

'The standards described by the law for the testing of whether or not a will has been procured by undue influence were set forth by this Court recently in the case of Koppal v. Soules, 189 Md. 346, 56 A.2d 48. In that case, the Court said that undue influence which will avoid a will must be unlawful on account of the manner and motive of its exertion, and must be exerted to such a degree as to amount to force or coercion, so that free agency of the testator is destroyed. The proof must be satisfactory that the will was obtained by this coercion (although it need not be immediately exercised as of the date of the execution of the will if its influence causes its execution) or by importunities which could not be resisted, so that the motive for the execution was tantamount to force or fear. Mere suspicion that a will has been procured by undue influence, or that a person had the 'power unduly to overbear the will of the testator' is not enough. It must appear that the power was actually exercised, and that its exercise produced the will. The burden of proof is on the caveator to meet these requirements of the law.'

Mabel Warner (Mabel) was the unmarried aunt of the appellee sisters, Lea and Julia. From about the age of six until her death at 82, Mabel was an intimate friend of appellant Florence Knowles (Florence), who had never married. Appellant Robert Alexander (Robert), Florence's favorite nephew, had known Mabel for many years. Mabel died in September 1970. At that time, Mabel's deed of trust, as amended by a second amendment provided that the income from virtually the entire trust estate should be paid to Florence for life, with remainder to Robert upon his aunt's death. Lea and Julia, because of their close family relationship with their aunt, decided that Mabel would not have excluded them from her trust estate unless she had been persuaded to do so by Florence and Robert.

Mabel was in comfortable circumstances as a result of a sizeable inheritance from her father and the apparently sound investment advice of her late brother, James Warner (James). Born and reared in Baltimore, she had habitually spent the major portion of the year in that city and her summers at Cape May, New Jersey. When she was about 71, she moved to her friend Florence's house in the Philadelphia suburb of Wynnewood. After this move in 1960, she spent her winters in Philadelphia and her summers at Cape May. Once she left Baltimore, Mabel never returned.

So long as she lived in Baltimore, her ties with her large family, and especially with appellees were very close. About 30 years previously, Lea and Julia, on the death of their parents, had moved in with their Aunt Mabel, another aunt and their grandmother. Mabel was named Julia's legal guardian. By 1948 both nieces had moved away from the Warner home, but they continued to maintain a close relationship with Mabel.

The move to Philadelphia did not end contact with the Baltimore relatives. Mabel often was in touch with her brother James about both business and personal matters. Judith Warner, James' daughter, a niece who testified at the trial but refused to join her cousins in attacking the amendment, kept in touch with her aunt by telephone throughout the years and forwarded Mabel's monthly social security checks (together with personal notes) from Baltimore to Philadelphia. Appellees Lea and Julia maintained their contact with their aunt by telephone and correspondence. They visited Mabel, from time to time, in both Philadelphia and at Cape May.

The close relationship between Mabel and her family in Baltimore continued until the death of Mabel's brother James in early 1969, approximately 18 months before her own death. After James' death, the relationship suffered a marked decline.

From 1959 until six months after James' death, Mabel's four nieces, including the appellees, were the principal beneficiaries of their aunt's estate. In 1959, she had directed her Baltimore attorney to prepare an inter vivos revocable deed of trust by the terms of which all income was to be paid to her until death, when the income was to be paid first to her brother James for life and then to her other brother, Douglas Warner (Douglas), for his life. Upon the death of both brothers, the trust was to terminate and the corpus was to be divided equally among her nieces and nephews.

Four years after the execution of the deed of trust, Mabel directed her Baltimore attorney to prepare a first amendment by which she excluded her nephews from participation in the trust estate. Aside from individual bequests to several persons, including $10,000.00 to Florence and a significantly smaller amount to Robert, Mabel's nieces remained principal corpus beneficiaries until October 1969, when Mabel executed a second amendment to the deed of trust, the validity of which is being challenged by Lea and Julia.

The truly decisive period is the seven months following James' death in March 1969. It began with the shock of James' death and ended with the signing of the second amendment which, for all practical purposes, excluded the nieces from sharing in Mabel's estate, substituted an outright bequest for Douglas' life estate and gave a life interest to Florence with remainder in Robert on Florence's death. During this critical period, Mabel was in poor health, a result of the infirmities of age and a heart attack which was attributed to James' death. The severity of her illness prompted her doctor to urge that a practical nurse be employed.

The nurse, Mrs. Katherine Crawford, together with Lea, Julia and their cousin Judith, testified to the situation as it was during the period March to October 1969, in the Knowles-Warner houses in Wynnewood and at Cape May. Their testimony was, for the most part, unrefuted.

(1) Mabel repeatedly pleaded with Mrs. Crawford to assist her in returning to her family in Baltimore, but Florence and Robert refused to permit such a trip, even to the extent that Mabel was physically restrained and her clothes were hidden by the nurse.

(2) Florence told Mabel that nobody in Baltimore cared about her and that her people were no good.

(3) Mabel's mail was generally censored by Florence after April of 1969, and the nurse was instructed to give...