Miller v. Proctor

• Decision Date: 25 May 1940
• Citation: 145 S.W.2d 807,24 Tenn.App. 439
• Parties: MILLER et al. v. PROCTOR.
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

145 S.W.2d 807

24 Tenn.App. 439

MILLER et al. v. PROCTOR.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, Middle Section.

May 25, 1940

Certiorari Denied by Supreme Court December 21, 1940.

Appeal from Chancery Court, Coffee County; T. L. Stewart Chancellor.

Suit by Lula Miller and others against Eva M. Proctor to set aside a deed. From a decree dismissing the bill, the complainants appeal.

Decree reversed and decree directed adjudging the deed invalid.

Russell Wright, of Hartsville, Leighton Ewell, of Manchester, and Brickell & Johnston and Geo. P. Cooper, all of Huntsville Ala., for appellants.

Roy L Mitchell, of Tullahoma, and W. F. Esslinger, of Huntsville, Ala., for appellee.

FELTS Judge.

This is a bill by the heirs of Virginia K. Hall, deceased, to set aside a deed by which she gave her nurse, Eva M. Proctor, a farm of about 200 acres in Coffee County. The grounds of attack upon the deed were that it had been obtained by fraud and undue influence, and that it had never been delivered.

The chancellor, hearing the cause upon the bill, the answer and proof by depositions, upheld the deed and dismissed the bill. Complainants appealed and insist that the chancellor should have adjudged the deed void upon both of these grounds and decreed the land to them.

Virginia K. Hall died at her residence in Coffee County, Tennessee, on March 25, 1937. At the time of her death she was about sixty-two years of age. She had never been married, her father and mother had predeceased her, and her nearest relatives were her first and second cousins, who are descendants of brothers and sisters of her father and brothers and sisters of her mother. Some of these collateral kindred are not parties to this suit; but no question as to this was made below or here.

She had lived on the farm here involved continuously since 1920. Prior to that time she had lived in New Market, Alabama, where she was born and reared. Her father seems to have been a man of wealth and to have left her considerable property. She attended Ward Seminary in Nashville, was well educated and was a person of refinement and culture. As a child she was frail and for the last twenty-five or thirty years of her life she was practically an invalid. The estate she left seems to be of a value of about $80,000, realty of a value of about $35,000 and the balance in personalty. All the realty except the Coffee County farm is located in Alabama. The proof does not show the value of this farm, but it is probably worth about $15,000. Its cost in 1920 was about $7,000 and the residence later erected upon it cost something over $7,000.

Eva M. Proctor was no kin to Virginia K. Hall. She had been reared in Wisconsin and was working as a nurse in the Madison Sanitarium, located near Nashville, when she first met Virginia K. Hall as a patient at the sanitarium. This was about 1910 or 1911, and about 1914 or 1915 she was employed by Virginia K. Hall as a nurse and continued in this employment until Miss Hall's death. She stated she was unable to recall what her compensation was for most of the years of her service, but that during the last few years of it she was paid all her expenses and $20 per month. She lived in the home of Miss Hall and accompanied her wherever she went. Miss Hall visited many sanitariums and spent much of her time in them. Among the sanitariums in which she was treated were Madison Sanitarium, Dr. Haywood's Sanitarium near Chattanooga, Fountain Head Health Retreat in Summer County, Tennessee, Dr. Werrick's Hospital, Elgin, Illinois, the Hillsdale Sanitarium, Hillsdale, Illinois, and many others. Miss Proctor nursed her at home and also at the various sanitariums where she was treated. Dr. Haywood described Miss Hall's condition thus: "First, Virginia K. Hall was of very frail constitution and physique; all of her bodily functions were what we call low plane--operate under low plane. There was a lack of vitality, of energy, marked weakness, malaise, easily fatigued; she was anemic, blood pressure low, and subject to gastro intestinal disturbances, slow digestion, and finally chronic colitis."

Miss Proctor was not only Miss Hall's nurse but was also her trusted agent to carry out her instructions for handling her business affairs. Miss Proctor often went to see Miss Hall's bankers and consulted them for business advice and told them of Miss Hall's wishes about her banking and investments. Miss Hall had a safe, locked by a combination, in her residence on the Coffee County farm, in which she kept notes, real estate mortgages, bonds and other valuable papers. She kept a box in the name of Miss Proctor at the First National Bank of Tullahoma in which the combination of this safe was kept. Miss Proctor was also entrusted with carrying out her instructions as to the management of her farm, making arrangements for renting the farm, giving instructions to employees and having general supervision of the farm under Miss Hall's instructions. Tenants and employees hardly ever saw Miss Hall, but dealt with her through Miss Proctor as her agent. Her physical condition was such that she rarely ever received any visitors or carried on any conversations with her neighbors or employees. In short, she lived a "recluse" and was wholly dependent on Miss Proctor not only to nurse her but to look after her affairs, or as one of Miss Proctor's witnesses put it, "she simply couldn't have lived if it had not been for Miss Proctor"; "she simply couldn't get along without her."

As stated, Miss Proctor went to live with Miss Hall about 1915, when she was living at her ancestral home in New Market, Alabama. She continued to live there until about 1920, when she sold her home, left kin, friends and lifetime acquaintances, and retired to the Coffee County farm, living in the farm house with another family, Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Myers, Mrs. Myers having been a nurse at Madison Sanitarium and a friend of Miss Proctor. Miss Proctor seems to have induced Miss Hall to do this. She wrote Mr. J. B. Myers, who was working at Muscle Shoals, about buying a farm near Tullahoma. He agreed to meet her there and look over the farm. He and Miss Proctor met in Tullahoma, went out and looked at the farm, talked with the owner, and agreed that day to buy the farm, Myers agreeing to take a half interest and Miss Proctor agreeing that Miss Hall would buy the other half interest in the farm. Later the papers were prepared and the purchase was consummated. Mr. and Mrs. Myers moved into the house on the farm and in a month or so Miss Hall and Miss Proctor moved in with them. This was in the spring of 1920. In the fall of 1920 the other tenant house on the place was repaired and Mr. and Mrs. Myers moved into it. Myers continued to live on the place for about five years. During this time he hardly ever saw Miss Hall and practically all his dealings with her were through Miss Proctor. He sold his half interest in the farm to Miss Hall, carrying on the negotiations through Miss Proctor, but when the deed was brought to him to execute it was made to Mr. Charles Bray, an employee on the farm, an acquaintance of Miss Proctor from Wisconsin. After staying there for a while Bray left and later transferred his half interest in the farm to Miss Hall. All his instructions for operating the farm were given by Miss Proctor, and the negotiations resulting in the transfer of the half interest to Miss Hall were carried on by Miss Proctor on behalf of Miss Hall.

On May 26, 1922, while Miss Hall and Myers were equal owners of this farm, and while she was at the Hillsdale Sanitarium, Hillsdale, Illinois, she made a will giving "my friend and nurse, Eva M. Proctor" "my farm in Coffee County, Tennessee," $10,000 in money, and the income for life from all the residue of her estate after paying certain specific bequests amounting in all to $11,000. Considering the $10,000 bequest, the Coffee County farm valued at $15,000, and the life income on the residue based on Miss Proctor's expectancy (she being forty-seven years of age at the time of Miss Hall's death), it would appear that the total value of the property given her by the will would amount to about $50,000 or nearly two-thirds of the whole estate. This will recited that Miss Hall was a resident of Madison County, Alabama, and it appears that Miss Proctor has offered it for probate in common form in Alabama. And it is stipulated that the will is being contested in Alabama by Miss Hall's relatives. It also appears that after offering the will for probate and the appointment of the administrator with the will annexed in Alabama, Miss Proctor brought suit against him claiming all of the personal estate either by gift or under the deed here involved. She was not able to state clearly the basis of this claim. The will of Miss Hall does not appear to have been recorded or offered for probate in Tennessee.

Miss Proctor says she knew nothing about the execution of this will except that Miss Hall told her, while they were at Hillsdale, that she had made a will. She does not say when she first learned the contents of the will. But it does appear that, while Myers still had half interest in the farm and before he moved off in 1925, she stated to Mrs. Roulett, who lived on an adjoining farm, that Miss Hall was going to give her the place and she wanted all of it and wanted to get rid of Myers. She also told Mrs. Roulett about 1930 that Miss Hall had made her a deed to the place, and that "the lawyers asked is there a will, and she said 'yes, but wills can be broken,"' or Miss Hall said "yes, but wills can be broken." Miss Proctor did not deny this conversation.

Miss Hall signed and acknowledged the deed in controversy on February 26, 1930 before Eldon Thoma, a notary public and vice-president and...