Moat v. Moat

• Citation: 301 Mass. 469,17 N.E.2d 710
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 28 November 1938
• Parties: HOWARD M. MOAT v. MAUDE T. MOAT & others.

301 Mass. 469

17 N.E.2d 710

HOWARD M. MOAT v. MAUDE T. MOAT & others.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Franklin.

November 28, 1938

September 21, 1938.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., DONAHUE LUMMUS, QUA, & RONAN, JJ.

Trust, Resulting. Equity Pleading and Practice, Appeal; Master: findings. No appeal lies from an order for final decree in a suit in equity.

A master's conclusion stated by him to be based solely on the subsidiary findings reported is open to revision by this court on appeal.

There was no resulting trust in favor of a husband in the whole or any lesser interest in property, title to which was taken in his wife's name after negotiations for its purchase by him where the purchase price was paid partly in cash by him and partly by their joint note secured by her mortgage and it did not appear that such payments as he later made on the note were pursuant to any understanding at the time of the purchase or that the total amount which he paid was consideration for a definite fractional interest in the property.

BILL IN EQUITY filed in the Superior Court on February 16, 1938. The decrees were entered by order of Leary, J.

M. J. Levy, for the defendants Moat and another. W. A. Davenport, for the plaintiff.

QUA, J. The plaintiff is the husband of the defendant Maude T. Moat. The primary purpose of the bill is to establish and enforce against Maude T. Moat and against the defendant Levy as the conservator of her property an alleged resulting trust in the real estate known as the Bernardston Inn in Bernardston together with the personal property pertaining thereto. The defendants Maude T. Moat and Levy appeal from an interlocutory decree overruling their exceptions to the master's report and confirming the report and from a final decree for the plaintiff. Their further attempt to appeal from an order for the entry of the final decree was needless and without effect. Graustein v. Dolan, 282 Mass. 579 , 583.

The interlocutory decree is attacked on the sole ground that the evidence before the master was insufficient as matter of law to justify one of his subsidiary findings of fact. As in our view of the case this question has ceased to be of consequence, it will be enough to say that the summary of the evidence on this point appended by the master to his report under Rule 90 of the Superior Court (1932) in our opinion discloses a legal basis for the finding.

The substantial question comes upon the final decree. The evidence as a whole is not reported. The master makes the ultimate finding "in so far as it be a question of fact and not of law" that the plaintiff is the owner of the property and that Maude T. Moat holds the title in trust for him. But the master states, in substance, that this conclusion is based wholly upon the findings of particular facts included in his report. It is therefore our duty to examine the particular or subsidiary facts found and to use our own judgment as to the conclusion which, with the application of correct principles of law, should be deduced from them. Robinson v. Pero, 272 Mass. 482 , 484.

In order to establish a resulting trust against his wife the husband must prove (1) that he himself furnished either "the entire consideration or a specific and definite part thereof, for which it was intended he should receive a determinate and fixed fraction of the whole estate conveyed" and (2) that "it was not intended at the time of the conveyance that the wife should take a beneficial interest in the property by way of gift, settlement or advancement." Pollock v. Pollock, 223 Mass. 382 , 384. Daniels v. Daniels, 240 Mass. 380 , 385. Although we think that on the subsidiary findings it is seriously questionable whether the plaintiff has met the second of these requirements, we shall confine our discussion to those findings which are applicable to the first requirement, as we are satisfied that the plaintiff has failed upon this branch of his case.

On this point the decisive findings are these: In 1913 the plaintiff, who had had experience in hotel management, negotiated for the purchase of the inn, and on September 11 the property was conveyed to Maude T. Moat for $25,000, of which $10,000 was paid in cash and the balance of $15,000 by the joint and several note of the plaintiff and Mrs. Moat secured by mortgages to the seller executed by Mrs. Moat upon the real estate and the accompanying personal property. The plaintiff borrowed the $10,000 from a bank and paid it to the seller. The $15,000 note has been paid, in part by the plaintiff from time to time out of the proceeds of his operation of the inn (in which, however, his wife had assisted him when her feeble health permitted), in part with money borrowed from the bank on another note signed by the plaintiff and Mrs. Moat which the plaintiff also paid by partial payments from time to time from the proceeds of the inn, and in part with money derived from a new mortgage upon the property given to a savings bank and "executed by" Mrs. Moat. It does not appear that the last mentioned mortgage has been paid at all.

By no stretch will these subsidiary findings support an ultimate finding that the plaintiff alone has paid the entire purchase price at any time in any way. Moreover it has been said...