Olsson v. Pierson
| Decision Date | 17 December 1946 |
| Docket Number | 46855. |
| Parties | OLSSON et al. v. PIERSON et al. (two cases). |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Edson & Edson, of Storm Lake, and A. C. R. Swenson, of Omaha Neb., for appellants.
Whitney Whitney & Stern, of Storm Lake, for appellees.
Plaintiffs live in Sweden. Their brother, August Olson, lived approximately 55 years in this country and died in Buena Vista County, October 3, 1943, aged about 75 years. He never married but lived, or made his headquarters when not working with various persons, first with the C. J. Blombergs near Albert City. Mrs. Blomberg was his cousin and nearest of kin in this country.
Subsequently, when the Blombergs moved to town, he changed his headquarters to the farm home of Andrew Aronson whose wife, Elsie, was a daughter of the Blombergs. During most of his life he worked as a farm hand and at his death he owned 40 acres in Buena Vista County, 75 or 80 acres in Pocahontas County, and a personal estate worth approximately $5,000. About 1935, on account of ill health he quit working regularly and spent most of his time with the Aronsons; and when later in 1938 they moved to another location he stayed on with their children who remained.
In 1940 he spent a short time in the Ft. Dodge Lutheran Hospital. Shortly thereafter he went to the Swallum Hospital at Storm Lake where he remained six or seven months. He then went to Axtell, Neb. to the Bethphage Institution where he stayed from October 24, 1940, to January 7, 1941. From there he came back to the Andrew Aronson home.
On September 30, 1932, he made a will by which he gave all his property to his brothers in Sweden. He had visited them shortly before. In 1939 he made a new will giving everything to Bethphage Inner Mission Association, Axtell, Neb. On May 3, 1940, he executed a broad power of attorney appointing his banker at Albert City to look after his property and business affairs.
The deed and bill of sale involved in this suit were executed January 25, 1941 (though dated January 24) at Storm Lake. On that day Andrew Aronson and Carl Anderson, an old friend and neighbor, took August Olson into town pursuant to his own request. He told them he wanted to go in and have defendant, Regina Pierson, appointed his guardian. Miss Pierson was county recorder.
They arrived at her office in the court house around 10 o'clock A.M. Upon being advised by them of the purpose of their visit Miss Pierson agreed to accept the appointment. She called Paul Turner, county attorney, who happened to be in the building and he drew the necessary petition which Mr. Olson signed for her appointment.
The conveyances in question here were thereafter drawn in Turner's office about a block distant from the courthouse. Miss Pierson, nor Aronson nor Anderson was present or knew they were being drawn. The deed runs to both defendants and the bill of sale to defendant Pierson alone. The two separate suits for their cancellation were tried together and are consolidated for the purpose of this appeal. More particular reference to the testimony will be made as we proceed.
Plaintiffs allege fraud and undue influence and mental incompetence. The trial court found for defendants and rendered decree accordingly and plaintiffs have appealed.
I. Under the Record the fraud, if any, was purely constructive, based entirely upon an assumed technical relation of guardian and ward between defendant Pierson and Olson. There is no evidence of any other kind of fraud or of any undue influence. There is no evidence of any solicitation by either defendant. Defendant Benna is Miss Pierson's aunt. Neither was related to Mr. Olson and there is no evidence that either knew of the execution of the instruments until after the transaction was completed.
It is questionable if any actual confidential relationship had yet arisen and even whether the technical relation of guardian and ward had commenced. In fact the Record shows it had not.
The files of the guardianship case show the petition for appointment was not filed until 3 P.M. and letters of guardianship issued at 4 P.M. of the day the conveyances were executed. Under the undisputed testimony of plaintiffs' own two witnesses with whom Mr. Olson came to town that day they had all left town and returned to the Anderson home in the country several hours before that. It seems certain then that even technically the guardianship had not commenced when the conveyances were executed.
But even if the technical fact were otherwise no real confidential relationship because of the appointment could have arisen. There had been no association between them as guardian and ward. No property had come into the guardian's hands and she had neither performed any act nor assumed any of the duties of the relationship. No position of dominance could have yet existed by reason of the appointment. The plan for giving his property to defendants could not have grown out of the existence of the relationship for at best--or worst--it had not really begun.
It appears rather that the conveyances were the result of the same feeling of friendship and trust that prompted Mr. Olson to select Miss Pierson as his guardian. The transactions were apparently contemporaneous in his mind. That feeling, prompting both acts, did not grow out of any closeness of association or of any conduct that had created a confidential relationship in any legal or equitable sense. Whatever presumption might otherwise arise as to undue influence or constructive fraud is overcome by the facts.
Nor does the Record bear out the contention that Mr. Olson, in making the conveyances, was without independent legal advice, if we were to assume the circumstances to have been such as to require proof of such advice as an equitable pre-requisite to upholding the validity of the instruments. The attorney who drew the instruments did so at Olson's request. He was not attorney for Miss Pierson either individually or as guardian. He had represented Olson in drawing the petition for guardianship. Any shortcomings in the advice he gave should not be charged to appellees. That he subsequently acted as attorney for the guardianship was a natural outcome but he was not acting in that capacity at the time he drew these conveyances.
Something is sought to be made of the fact that the instruments were pre-dated one day. The attorney testified that this was done in view of the guardianship appointment on the 25th,
We see nothing even suspicious in the circumstances nor in the fact that much later the attorney ante-dated a revocation of the 1939 will to January 24, 1941. Neither tends to establish fraud in the making of the deed and bill of sale.
The rule of constructive fraud as to transactions between persons in confidential relationship is a salutary one and should be jealously upheld. But the relationship should be clearly established before the rule is invoked against one who is the beneficiary of a transaction that is free from any appearance of actual fraud. Otherwise it might become a weapon to thwart the will of the very one whose interest it is designed to protect. There is here no slightest contention of fraud, actual or constructive, between decedent and Mrs. Benna. And as to Miss Pierson the most that can be said is that she was given the property in consideration of the same friendship that prompted her selection as guardian and not because of the relationship, since that had not actually commenced.
II. The Record is voluminous on the subject of Mr. Olson's mental condition. A large number of lay witnesses testified to facts upon which they based the opinion he was incompetent. Three expert witnesses expressed a similar opinion, one wholly upon the basis of hypothetical questions, the other two in part at least from personal observation.
The trial court in an analysis of the entire testimony points out that the opinions of those lay witnesses were based on the fact that decedent had various 'persecution delusions.' This testimony was also embodied in the hypothetical questions to the experts. Some of the lay witnesses who told of these delusions indicated that they came on by 'spells'; that 'he was better at times than others'; sometimes his mind was 'pretty good'; 'at times his mind seemed good.'
The delusions mostly were that his money was being stolen by his attorney in fact; that attempts were being made to poison him; that certain friends had been sent to the penitentiary; that his clothes had been stolen while he was at the hospital; that spirits came to the hospital and threw his things in the lake; and that people in the hospital were stripping flesh from skeletons in the operating room. There was also testimony that he talked at times of committing suicide.
The experts who expressed the opinion he was insane diagnosed his mental illness as 'psychosis with cerebral arteriosclerosis' and 'senile dementia.' One said: 'At times he would be perfectly rational in my opinion and at other times his mind was not rational'; and, 'I admit that this man was at times able to make rational decisions.'
A number of lay witnesses testified to Mr. Olson's soundness of mind, based upon varying degrees of intimacy of association and opportunity for observing. Among them were two nurses who helped care for him during a five months stay in the hospital in 1940. One expert witness gave similar testimony based on hypothetical questions not materially different from those propounded to the other experts.
It is manifestly impossible to compress within reasonable limits the...
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