Maryland Hospital v. Foreman

• Decision Date: 16 December 1868
• Citation: 29 Md. 524
• Parties: THE PRESIDENT AND VISTORS OF THE MARYLAND HOSPITAL v. EDWARD FOREMAN.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

29 Md. 524

THE PRESIDENT AND VISTORS OF THE MARYLAND HOSPITAL v. EDWARD FOREMAN.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

December 16, 1868

APPEAL from the Superior Court of Baltimore City.

On the 6th of December, 1851, Jane Foreman, a lunatic, was admitted a patient in the Maryland Hospital, at $3 per week, payable quarterly in advance, at the request of her brother, the appellee, who gave his written obligation with a surety, to the appellants as required by them. The charge, per week, was altered from time to time, and the sums, so charged, were paid duly by the appellee continuously to the 1st July 1863;--he discharging the same for a considerable portion of that time out of his own means. In the spring of 1863, the appellee being in delicate health, and about to leave Maryland for an indefinite time, and influenced also by the disturbed state of the country, desired to make some arrangement of a permanent kind for the support of his lunatic sister at said hospital, and so stated to its Medical Superintendent. After some negotiation on the subject, on the 6th April, 1863, the superintendent, by letter, informed the appellee that $1,200 cash would be accepted in commutation. Accordingly, on the 17th of April, 1863, the appellee, from his own means, paid that sum to the appellants, "for the support of Miss Jane Foreman during life, in the Maryland Hospital, including all expenses." Miss Foreman died on the 12th of August, 1864, after an illness of a few days, and was buried at the appellee's expense. The appellee claimed that after deducting the proper and reasonable charges for the support and care of his sister from the 1st of July, 1863, to the 12th of August, 1864, the date of her decease, the balance of the $1,200 was rightfully payable to him by the appellants. And this action was instituted to recover the same. A single prayer was offered on either side. The Court (MARTIN, J.) granted the prayer of the plaintiff and rejected that of the defendants. To this ruling of the Court, the defendants excepted, and the verdict and judgment being against them, they appealed.

The cause was argued before BARTOL, C.J., NELSON, STEWART, BRENT GRASON, MILLER, ALVEY, and ROBINSON, J.

William J. Jones and Archibald Stirling, Jr., for the appellants:

The contract entered into between the appellants and the appellee, was neither illegal nor contrary to public policy. Miss Foreman was legally committed to the hospital by her committee, her mother and the mother of the appellee. The estate in the hands of the committee became exhausted, and the patient continued incurably insane. The mother died, leaving the appellee the sole natural support of the lunatic. The war came on. The future was uncertain. The appellee was possessed of property. He knew then what he was worth. He did not know what, as the war went on, he might be worth. His health had failed and his own labor could not be relied on to support himself or the afflicted sister. He was about to leave Maryland for a distant part of the country. He had either to make this arrangement, which, from his possession of a definite capital, he then knew he could make, or leave his sister incurably insane, utterly unprotected and without provision for her future support. On the part of the appellee, the contract was dictated by the very best motives and the most reasonable view of existing and probable facts. On the part of the hospital, the desire was to meet the appellee's wishes and they made the arrangement securing to the patient a support during life, and though done reluctantly, it was done by the deliberate action of the Board of Visitors.

The only cases at all similar to this are various ones in this country where land has been conveyed to grantees by aged persons, on the covenant of the grantee to keep the grantor in the house of the grantee, and provide him with all necessaries during his life; and such covenant has been held good. Jackson, ex dem. Allen, vs. Florence, 16 Johns., 47; McLean vs. Button, 19 Barb., 450; Sanders vs. Wagonseller, 19 Penn., 248; Shontz vs. Brown, 27 Penn., 254; Gault vs. Hall, 26 Maine, 561; Hutchinson vs. Hutchinson, 46 Maine, 154; Spalding vs. Hallenbeck, 30 Barb., 292; Exum vs. Canty, 34 Miss., 533; McGill vs. Woodward, Const. Reports, 468; Young vs. Ringo, 1 Monroe, 243; Lane vs. Wingate, 3 Ired., 326; Kendall vs Kendall, 7 Greenleaf, 171.

If the contract were void as claimed by the appellee's prayer granted by the Court, then neither party to it can ask the interference of the Court, and the appellee in this case cannot recover except by making use of the contract which he claims to be illegal, and therefore the instruction of the Court was erroneous. Simpson vs. Bloss, 7 Taun., 246; Albert vs. The Savings Bank of Baltimore, 1 Md. Chan. Dec., 407, and 2 Md. Rep., 172; 2 Eng. C. L. Rep., 89, 90; Dixon vs. Olmstead, 9 Vermont, 310; Foot and Stone vs. Emmons, 10 Vermont, 338; Howell vs. Fountain, 3 Kelly, 176; Adams vs. Barrett, 5 Georgia, 404; Scott vs. Duffy, 14 Penn., 18.

If the appellee ever had any right of action to recover back the amount paid by him under the contract, he ought to have exercised that right before the contingency of the death of the lunatic occurred, and he ought not, in law, to be allowed to take all the benefits of the contract and then dissent from it, when and not until it became certain that no further benefit could accrue to him.

William Jessop Ward, for the appellee:

The contract in evidence in this case is condemned by the policy of the law. Townson vs. Wilson, et al., 1 Campbell, 396, 398; Rex vs. Martin, 2 Campbell, 268; Watkins vs. Hewlett, 1 Brod. & Bing., 1; Cole, et al. vs. Gower & Pigget, 6 East, 116, 117; Chappell vs. Poles, et al., 2 Meeson & Welsby, 867.

It was not competent for the appellant so to contract in the absence of special authority therefor; and its act of incorporation confers no such power. Code of Pub. Gen. Laws, Art. 44, secs. 7 and 9; The People vs. Utica Ins. Co., 15 Johns., 383; Angell & Ames on Corporations, secs. 256, 271.

This is an eleemosynary corporation, and of very limited power. Angell & Ames on Corporations, sec. 39; 3 Bland, 417.

The appellee ought to recover ex æquo et bono from the appellant the sum paid the latter, less the amount properly chargeable as a fair and reasonable allowance for the interval between the 30th of June, 1863, and the 12th of August, 1864; upon which deduction the jury passed in rendering the verdict. Curtis, et al. vs. Leavitt, 15 N.Y. Rep., 9, 283.

BARTOL C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

This suit was instituted by the appellee to recover money paid by him upon a contract alleged to be illegal and void. At the first argument, heard near the close of the last term, the validity of the contract, evidenced by the receipt dated the 17th of April, 1863, was assailed chiefly on the ground that it was condemned by public policy, and was, therefore illegal and void. The contract having been executed, and there being no evidence whatever of any duress, hardship or oppression practised upon the party complaining, there seemed to be great force in the objection that the plaintiff came too late to have the contract set aside, and that the principle, in pari delicto, ought to be applied. The judges who heard the argument not being entirely agreed, and the questions, as here presented, being somewhat novel, it was considered most consonant with the ends of justice to direct a re-argument, to allow time for a fuller examination, and afford an opportunity for consulting the other members of the bench who did not sit at the oral argument. We must express to the counsel on both sides our thanks for the very full and satisfactory manner in which they have discussed the questions in their notes of argument. These have been carefully considered, and we now proceed to state the grounds upon which we have come to the conclusion that the judgment of the Superior Court ought to be affirmed. The contract upon which the...