Plant v. Plant

• Decision Date: 27 February 1899
• Citation: 25 So. 151,76 Miss. 560
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: RUTH E. PLANT v. SAMUEL H. PLANT

25 So. 151

76 Miss. 560

RUTH E. PLANT v. SAMUEL H. PLANT

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 27, 1899

November 1898

FROM the chancery court of Lafayette county, HON. H. C. CONN Chancellor.

The opinion states the case.

Reversed and cause remanded.

H. A Barr, for appellant.

No wonder that the chancellor, although holding adversely to us, was constrained to admit that the transaction was suspicious. If it was suspicious, it ought to have been set aside. The natural and just influence which a parent has over a child renders it peculiarly important for courts of justice to watch over and protect the interest of the child, and, therefore, all contracts whereby benefits are secured by children to parents are objects of jealousy, and if they are not entered into with scrupulous good faith and are reasonable under all circumstances, they will be set aside. 1 Story Eq. Jur., sec. 309. Undue influence in business on the part of a father in a transaction with a son is presumed. Addison on Contracts, 158.

Where one of feeble understanding enters into a contract with a person in whom he has confidence, and there is unfairness or great advantage in the transaction to the person trusted, the inference is that there was undue influence. Simonton v. Bacon, 49 Miss. R., 582. If an antecedent fiduciary relation exists, a court of equity will presume confidence placed and influence exerted, and the burden of the proof rests on the person occupying the fiduciary relation to show that the transaction was fair and just. Fisher v. Bishop, 108 N.Y. 25. In a transaction between father and son, the law, upon a principle of public policy and to protect the son against overweening confidence and self-delusion and the infirmities of a hasty, precipitate judgment, pronounces the existence of undue influence on the part of the father, and, therefore, such transaction is prima facie void, unless the father show by the clearest proof that he dealt with his son exactly like a stranger, taking no advantage of his influence, and that the son acted upon his own volition and upon the fullest deliberation. This was declared in Meek v. Perry, 36 Miss. 190, in a case where a will was made by a ward in favor of a guardian, and the same principle applies as between father and son.

Stone & Sivley, on the same side.

Though a person is not incapable of making a valid contract, yet if there is such weakness of mind as to enable another in whom confidence is reposed to take advantage of him, and any unfairness is used, the contract will be rescinded. 1 Story's Eq. Juris., 235, 236; Bunch v. Shannon, 46 Miss. 526; Simonton v. Bacon, 49 Miss. 588. What is undue influence? 2 Pom. Eq. Juris., sec. 951; 38 Am. Rep., 385. Transactions between parent and child are always to be viewed with suspicion. Pom. Eq. Juris., sec. 956; Story's Eq. Juris., 309; 27 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 485, 486, and 480; Bispham's Eq., sec. 235, and notes 2 and 3; 5 Lawson's Rights and Remedies, sec. 2369; Snell's Eq., 402; 2 Pom. Eq. Juris., 962; Thornton on Gifts, sec. 462; see also note 3, under sec. 962, Pom. Eq. Juris. Where both confidential relationship and weakness of mind are shown to exist the court should scrutinize the contract with the greatest care. Graves v. White, 4 Bax. (Tenn.), 38; 27 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 457, 458, notes 1, 2, and 3; Thornton on Gifts, secs. 443 and 444. The presence or absence of an adviser at the making of the contract will effect the amount of evidence required to set aside the contract. Henchman v. Emmons, 1 N. J., Eq., 100. Will not the same presumption of undue influence arise in this case as if the same transaction was between husband and wife? 27 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 485, 486, and 480; Fisher v. Bishop, 2 Am. St. Rep., 359, and notes. As to what constitutes fiduciary relationship, see Anderson's Dictionary, 459 and Story's Eq. Juris., sec. 218; 2 Pom. Eq. Juris., secs. 943, 944, 947, 951, 955, 956, and 962.

W. V. Sullivan, for the appellee.

Filed a brief discussing the facts of the case, and contending that they did not show undue influence.

Argued orally by James Stone, for appellant, and by B. T. Kimbrough, for appellee.

OPINION

WOODS, C. J.

The complainant, the widow of William Plant, a son of the appellee, S. H. Plant, seeks by her bill in this case to set aside the assignment of a policy of insurance for $ 2, 000 on the life of said William Plant, deceased, made by him in October, 1895, to his father, the assignee, because procured by the exercise of undue influence on the part of the father over the son.

It is shown undisputedly that William Plant was never a very strong and healthy man, and that, under the ravages of that dreaded foe to the human race, consumption, for about a year before his death, he had become exceedingly weak, and was in that condition physically when the assignment of the insurance policy was made, and that he died about two months thereafter. As to his mental state, the evidence of his wife and mother-in-law is to the effect that he was incapacitated to attend to business. The evidence of several witnesses introduced by defendant is to the effect that these witnesses saw no signs of mental unsoundness or decay; but these witnesses state under what circumstances they occasionally saw him and the casual observation of him made by them. The evidence of his attending physician and that of his pastor is that, while not mentally unsound or insane, yet, nevertheless, in his extremely weak physical state his mind must have been affected also; for, as the physician very aptly expressed it, "if the mind did not become correspondingly weak with the body, then nature would not be in harmony with itself." We, then, have the case of one wasted and enfeebled by long disease, physically, and with a mind also weakened and enfeebled correspondingly.

The relationship between the parties was that of father and son. The son, from his youth, had been under the direct control of the father--as a clerk in the father's store until he was admitted as a partner in his father's mercantile business, with "a working interest in the partnership " as the witness Hampton expresses it. This witness, who was the bookkeeper of S. H. Plant & Son for several years, says: "I have known Will Plant for several years before his death, both when he was clerk in the store of his father and after he became a member of the firm. He was always a most obedient son when it came to...