Norfleet v. Beall

CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Mississippi
Citation82 Miss. 538,34 So. 328
Decision Date18 May 1903
PartiesJAMES NORFLEET v. JABIN E. BEALL

March 1903

FROM the chancery court of, first district, Hinds county. HON HENRY C. CONN, Chancellor.

Norfleet appellant, was complainant, and Beall, appellee, a colored physician, was defendant in the court below. From a decree dismissing the bill the complainant appealed to the supreme court. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court. It may be added, however, that the land was shown to have been worth one thousand dollars.

Reversed and remanded.

Harper & Potter, for appellant.

The evidence as to the value of the property in question varies from $ 700 to $ 1,400. It is undenied that Elizabeth was never allowed to consult her friends, white or black, and had no advice, legal or otherwise, and she seems to have been guarded until the affair had been hurriedly concluded.

There is no proof that she understood, or was capable of understanding, the complicated conveyance, or that it would cut her son out, or that the doctor's bill for William was not a debt that she was bound to secure or pay.

The impropriety of the transaction before the court is so gross as to shock a person of decent sensibilities.

That a family physician holding, as it were, the life of his patient in his hands, should so situate himself as to become interested in her death, when his stimulus and reward should be in her continued good health and long life, is monstrous.

The record shows that Dr. Beall was the trusted friend and family physician of Elizabeth Robinson, an illiterate negro seventy-five years of age. This much is undisputed, and it is a fact known to all men that untrained minds are weak at that stage, and it is only by hard training and use that the mind remains intact after three score years and ten. But this is not all. We think that the court must be satisfied, from the great preponderance of the evidence in the case, that this old woman was a person of weak mind and of great credulity.

The inequality of the situation is appalling. A poor, old negro woman, past her allotted days, pressed by her son's infirmity and weakness and suffering, set upon by and trafficking with men of cunning, seeking to promote their own interest, without aid or counsel of friends, she was, and was of necessity bound to come to the terms proposed by her physician and pretended friend. She was made to feel that her son's life hung in the balance. Allore v. Jewell, 94 U.S. 506; 2 Pomroy's Equity Jurisprudence, 963; Clark v. Lopez, 75 Miss. 932.

Stirling & Harris, for appellee.

A person of weak mind has as much right to convey property as one of great mental capacity, if no undue influence is exerted, and the evidence of Beall, and every one of the witnesses who were present at the execution of the deed, show that there was no pressure or influence used at the time by Beall to induce its execution.

The evidence absolutely fails to sustain the contention of the bill that there was failure or inadequate attention rendered by Dr. Beall, even the witnesses for appellant in some instances testifying that he went to see William Henry as often as twice a day, and Jones, witness for appellant testified that...

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10 cases
  • Fant v. Fant
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • June 10, 1935
    ...Ham v. Ham, 146 Miss. 141 110 So. 583; Meek & Thornton v. Perry, 36 Miss. 190; Hitt v. Terry, 92 Miss. 710, 46 So. 829; Norfleet v. Beall, 82 Miss. 538, 34 So. 382. A deed from a grantor to a grantee between whom there is a fiduciary relation, is presumed to be invalid, fraudulent, and void......
  • Cresswell v. Cresswell
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • March 28, 1932
    ... ... 192; Stubing v. Stubing, 27 ... N.Y.S. 43, 7 N.Y.S. 500; Post v. Hagan, 81 N.J.Eq ... 234, 124 Am. St. Rep. 997, 65 A. 1026; Norfleet v ... Beall, 82 Miss. 538, 34 So. 328; Clark v ... Lopez, 75 Miss. 932, 23 So. 648; Webb et al. v. Webb et ... al., 99 Miss. 234, 54 So.840 ... ...
  • Carhart v. Aldridge
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • September 27, 1926
    ... ... 840; Hoy v. Hoy, 93 Miss. 732, 48 ... So. 903, 25 L. R. A. (N. S.) 182 note. See also Clark v ... Lopez, 75 Miss. 932, 23 So. 648; Norfleet v ... Beall, 82 Miss. 538, 34 So. 328; Johnson v ... Hall, 87 Miss. 667, 47 So. 1; Leech v ... Hirshman, 90 Miss. 723, 44 So. 33; Leflore ... ...
  • Hitt v. Terry
    • United States
    • Mississippi Supreme Court
    • June 8, 1908
    ...eleventh instructions for the contestants (appellees), we merely refer to the decisions of the cases of Meek v. Perry, supra, and Norfleet v. Beall, supra. J. Cutrer, on the same side. The preponderant weight of the evidence showed that the alleged testator did not possess the requisite tes......
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1 books & journal articles
  • RACE IN CONTRACT LAW.
    • United States
    • University of Pennsylvania Law Review Vol. 170 No. 5, May 2022
    • May 1, 2022
    ...court to lay "the strong arm of justice... protectingly [sic] about [the] bent and time worn shoulders" of the "negro"); Norfleet v. Beall, 34 So. 328, 328 (Miss. 1903) (arguing that the "old, feeble negro woman... stood on no terms of equality with" the defendant). Others have made this po......

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