Martin v. Baker

• Decision Date: 15 October 1896
• Citation: 36 S.W. 369,135 Mo. 495
• Parties: Martin v. Baker et al., Appellants
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

36 S.W. 369

135 Mo. 495

Martin v. Baker et al., Appellants

Supreme Court of Missouri, First Division

October 15, 1896

Appeal from Andrew Circuit Court. -- Hon. William S. Herndon, Judge.

Affirmed.

Casteel & Haynes for appellants.

(1) The first deed was for a valuable consideration, and "neither old age, disease, mental weakness, inadequacy of consideration, nor confidential relations, are per se independent and substantial grounds upon which courts of equity will interfere to relieve a party from a contract voluntarily entered into, for a valuable consideration." Taylor v. Crockett, 123 Mo. 300; Likins v Likins, 122 Mo. 279; Pennington v. Stanton, 28 S.W. 1067; Dickson v. Kempinksky, 96 Mo. 253. (2) Mrs. Baker was getting old and needed attention; she had property and desired to use it in procuring that attention so she made the contract for her support and maintenance, and deeded to defendants one hundred and fifty acres of land as the consideration, and being just in itself and consequences the deed will not be set aside on the ground of undue influence. Turner v. Turner, 44 Mo. 535; Moore v. Moore, 67 Mo. 192; Hamilton v. Armstrong, 120 Mo. 597; Pennington v. Stanton, above cited. (3) Mrs. Lydia L. Baker had the right as a matter of law, to do with her property as she pleased and this to the exclusion of heirs. Jackson v. Hardin, 83 Mo. 184; Elliott v. Welby, 13 Mo.App. 20; Mueller v. Ass'n, 5 Mo.App. 397; Maddox v. Maddox, 114 Mo. 41; Keithley v. Keithley, 85 Mo. 223; Moore v. Moore, 67 Mo. 198; Uhlick v. Muhlke, 61 Ill. 523; Henser v. Harris, 42 Ill. 425. (4) If Mrs. Lydia L. Baker had mind and memory sufficient to comprehend and understand the value of her property and the condition and situation of those who had claims on her bounty, then she had a mind sufficient to make the deeds. Moore v. Moore, 67 Mo. 192; McKinney v. Hensley, 74 Mo. 326; Keithley v. Keithley, 85 Mo. 217; Benoist v. Murrin, 58 Mo. 322; Jackson v. Hardin, 83 Mo. 175; Meyers v. Hauger, 98 Mo. 433. (5) The mere fact that the mind of a person is impaired by age or disease does not render such person incompetent to make valid contracts. Parsons on Contracts [7 Ed.], 383; Cutler v. Zollinger, 117 Mo. 92. (6) Even in monomania or partial insanity, to invalidate an instrument, it must appear that the partial insanity related to the subject of the contract in question, and the burden is on the party asserting it, to prove its existence at time of making contract. 1 Wharton & Stille's Medical Jurisprudence, sec. 3; Benoist v. Murrin, 58 Mo. 307; Cutler v. Zollinger, 117 Mo. 9. (7) Testing Mrs. Lydia L. Baker's mental capacity, by plaintiff's witnesses alone, she had more mental vigor than was possessed by either of the grantors in the following cases, to wit: Moore v. Moore, 67 Mo. 192; McKinney v. Hensley, 74 Mo. 136.

David Rea for respondent.

(1) The law imposes upon every person occupying a relation of confidence to another who receives a gift from the latter the burden of showing the absolute fairness and validity of the transaction was entirely free from undue influence. Gavins, Adm'r, v. Williams, 44 Mo. 465; Cadwallader v. West, 48 Mo. 483; Yosti v. Laughlin, 49 Mo. 594; Gay v. Gillilan, 92 Mo. 250; Hall v. Knappenberger, 97 Mo. 509; Bogie v. Nolan, 96 Mo. 85; McClure v. Lewis, 72 Mo. 314; Bradshaw v. Yates, 67 Mo. 221. (2) Courts have declined to limit the operation of the foregoing rule by undertaking to name the relations to which it applies. They have said that the rule in its application is as broad as the mischief it is designed to meet, and that the relief stands upon a general principle applying to all the variety of relations in which dominion may be exercised by one person over another. Gay v. Gillilan, 92 Mo. 250; Hall v. Knappenberger, 97 Mo. 509; Hare and Wallace's Notes, page 61. (3) Mrs. Lydia L. Baker had two daughters and she disinherited one of them, giving all of her property to the other. Such gross inequality in the disposition of her property, places on Martha, the recipient of her mother's gifts, the onus of establishing the validity of such gifts. Gay v. Gillilan, 92 Mo. 251. (4) It became material to know what were the previous purposes and state of mind of Lydia L. Baker, and statements made by her at, before and after the making of the deeds in controversy are competent evidence for those purposes. Thompson v. Ish, 99 Mo. 160; Rule v. Maupin, 84 Mo. 587; Twigley v. Cowgill, 48 Mo. 291; Gibson v. Gibson, 24 Mo. 227. (5) Contents of prior wills which have been revoked may be given in evidence to show the fixed purpose and intention of the testator. Thompson v. Ish, 99 Mo. 160; Thomas v. Stump, 62 Mo. 278; Muller v. Association, 73 Mo. 242.

Macfarlane J. Brace, C. J., absent.

OPINION

Macfarlane, J.

Plaintiff and defendant Martha Baker are sisters, the only children of Lydia L. Baker, deceased, and defendant Henry Baker is the husband of the said Martha.

On the eighteenth of August, 1890, the said Lydia L. Baker, then a widow, executed and delivered to defendants a quitclaim deed conveying one hundred and sixty acres of land known as the home place of the grantor. The consideration expressed in this deed was $ 1 and an agreement on the part of the grantees to support and maintain the grantor during her life. The grantor retained a life estate in the land. The grantees were to have the possession and use of the land, unless the contract of maintenance was not kept, in which case the grantor reserved the right to resume possession and control. The said contract is declared in the deed to be the real consideration.

On the tenth day of March, 1891, the said Lydia L. Baker executed and delivered to defendant Martha Baker, a deed to one hundred and twenty acres of additional land situate in section 31, township 59, range 36. The consideration in this deed was $ 1 and love and affection. A life estate was also retained by the grantor in this land.

On the twenty-fifth of May, 1891, defendants conveyed all of said land, and other land belonging to the wife, to one William Herren, who, on the same day, conveyed it back to them in joint tenancy.

The said Lydia Baker died in December, 1891, and this suit was commenced in February, 1892, the object of which is to set aside and annul these deeds on the ground that they were procured by fraud and undue influence of defendant, and that the grantor was at the time of unsound mind and memory and incapable of making them.

The answer of defendants contained a specific denial of each charge of fraud and affirmative allegations to the effect that the deeds were made without solicitation, fraud, or influence on the part of defendants, and that the grantor was at the time of sufficient mental capacity to make the deeds.

The evidence shows that the said Lydia Baker owned in her own right the home farm at the death of her husband, which occurred in 1879, and received in her own right from her husband's estate, two hundred and forty acres of land additional. Of this, one hundred and twenty acres was conveyed to defendants by the deed of March 10, 1891. The estimated value of all the land was $ 10,000, and of the home place $ 5,000 or $ 6,000.

The said Lydia after the death of her husband, continued to reside on the home farm until 1890. The first six or seven years of this period defendants lived with her. At the end of that period they moved to and continued to reside on the farm of the wife in the same neighborhood.

Plaintiff first married a man by the name of Brown, and in 1873 moved with her husband to Colorado. Her husband died in 1878, and in 1886 she married Martin. In 1890 she and her husband returned to Missouri to live.

In 1881 the said Lydia took one of the daughters of Mrs. Brown to live with her, where she remained until she married in 1890. Soon thereafter the said Lydia went to the home of defendants, where she lived until her death.

The first of the deeds was made in a month or two after she went to the home of defendants.

Plaintiff has five children, some of whom are minors. Defendants are childless.

The evidence shows that the said Lydia was, at the death of her husband, a woman of good physical health, strong mind, and good business capacity, but that some years before her death she had suffered from slight attacks of paralysis and was quite feeble physically. At her death she was about eighty years old.

In the year 1885 or 1886 deceased made a will by which she devised the "home place" and about forty acres of the remaining land to plaintiff and the rest of the land consisting of two hundred acres she devised to defendant Martha for life, "and should she die without leaving children to inherit, said land shall descend to" plaintiff, or "her heirs in case of her death." The will also gave to the five children of plaintiff $ 150 each.

Another will was made about twelve or eighteen months after the first. By this will she devised the home place to defendant Martha with the same limitation as contained in the first; the other land she devised to plaintiff. The personal property was disposed of about as in the first. No copy of this will was preserved and its exact provisions could not be recalled by the witnesses.

In March, 1891, deceased made to defendant Martha Baker the deed to one hundred and twenty acres of land. On the same day she made a deed to plaintiff for the other one hundred and twenty acres. This deed contained certain restrictions, on account of which defendant refused to accept it. On the day the deed to the home place was made to defendants, August 19, 1890, the grantor assigned to defendant Henry Baker a note for $ 1,481.

On the twenty-fifth day of May, 1891, Judge William Herren, at the request of Henry Baker, went out to...