McLeod v. McLeod

• Decision Date: 11 January 1906
• Citation: 40 So. 414,145 Ala. 269
• Parties: MCLEOD ET AL. v. MCLEOD.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

40 So. 414

145 Ala. 269

MCLEOD ET AL. v. MCLEOD.

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 11, 1906

Rehearing Denied April 3, 1906.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Barbour County; W. L. Parks, Chancellor.

"To be officially reported."

Action by William McLeod against Sallie E. McLeod, as administrator and others. From a decree in favor of plaintiff, defendants appeal. Reversed.

G. L Comer and S. H. Dent, for appellants.

A. H Merrill, for appellee.

DOWDELL J.

The bill in this case is one by the father against his daughters and is for the purpose of setting aside and annulling a certain paper writing, whereby he had transferred or consigned all of his interest in the estate of his deceased son to his said daughters. The relief sought by the bill is based upon charges of fraud and undue influence, and inadequacy of consideration is also alleged. Mere inadequacy of consideration is not a sufficient ground for setting aside and annulling a contract. As was said in Judge v. Wilkins, 19 Ala. 771: "I follow the language of the authorities in saying that inadequacy of price, or other inequality in the bargain, is not within itself a sufficient ground to avoid a contract in a court of equity, on the ground of fraud; for courts of equity, as well as courts of law, must act upon the ground that every person, who is not under some legal disability, may dispose of his property in such manner and upon such terms as he sees fit; and whether his bargains are discreet or not, profitable or unprofitable, are considerations not for courts of justice, but for the party himself." 1 Story's Eq. 244; Adams, Eq. p. 392; Bolling v. Munchus, 65 Ala. 558; Goodlett v. Hansell, 66 Ala. 151; Malone v. Kelley, 54 Ala. 532.

The appellee, the complainant in the court below, seeks to invoke the doctrine that in transactions inter vivos, where the parties stand in confidential relations, and the grantee, who is the beneficiary, is the dominant spirit in the transaction that the law raises up the presumption of undue influence and casts upon the opposite party the burden of repelling such presumption by satisfactory evidence whenever the transaction is assailed. In a case like the one before us, the question as to who is the dominant spirit in the transaction is one of fact, and becomes one of vital importance in the application of the doctrine above stated. A donation from the parent to the child, alone and of itself, would raise no presumption of undue influence since, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the parent is presumably the dominant party. If undue influence...