Porter v. Spring

• Decision Date: 18 October 1924
• Citation: 250 Mass. 83,145 N.E. 52
• Parties: PORTER v. SPRING.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

250 Mass. 83

145 N.E. 52

PORTER

v.SPRING.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Franklin.

Oct. 18, 1924.

Appeal from Supreme Judicial Court, Franklin County.

Suit in equity by Charles F. Porter against Nettie J. Spring to have set aside claim for curtesy. Decree for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.W. A. Davenport, Charles Fairhurst, and W. L. Davenport, all of Greenfield, for appellant.

James A. Stiles, of Fitchburg, for appellee.

RUGG, C. J.

This is a suit in equity wherein the plaintiff seeks to have set aside a claim for curtesy filed by him with respect to the settlement of the estate of his testate wife. After a demurrer to the bill had been overruled, the case was referred to a master, under a rule which required him to make report of his findings together with such facts and questions of law as either party might request.

[1] The evidence is not reported. Therefore the facts found by the master must stand unless they are mutually inconsistent or contradictory. Glover v. Waltham Laundry Co., 235 Mass. 330, 334, 127 N. E. 420, and cases there collected; Volpe v. Sensatini, 249 Mass. 132, 144 N. E. 104. There is no incongruity in the several findings made. Hence they must be accepted as true.

The facts as found by the master are that the wife of the plaintiff deceased in 1917 without issue, leaving personal estate insufficient to pay her debts and charges of administration and leaving real and personal estate of not exceeding in the aggregate $5,000. She left a will and codicil, the provisions of which were less favorable to the financial interestsof the plaintiff than the provisions of the statutes then in force. R. L. c. 140, § 3 (third); R. L. c. 135, § 16. The plaintiff seasonably consulted an attorney at law by whom he was advised as to the waiver of the testamentary provisions made in his behalf by his deceased wife and by whom he was sent to another attorney at law at the county seat to have the waiver filed. The plaintiff told the latter attorney that he wished to waive the provisions of his wife's will. A blank form was obtained and the plaintiff was directed to sign it in two places. This form contained two blanks, on a single sheet of paper, one a waiver of the will under R. L. c. 135, § 16, and the other an election to claim curtesy, under R. L. c. 132, § 1, as amended by St. 1915, c. 134. Both blanks were filled out and signed by the plaintiff at the same time pursuant to guidance and advice of able counsel. The single sheet of paper containing both statements was filed with the probate records. The plaintiff intended when signing this paper to waive the provisions of his wife's will, but did not intent to claim curtesy. The master further finds that:

‘If there was a mistake in filing the paper in the Probate Court it was through mistake of his counsel and not by reason of any misapprehension of its effect on the part of the plaintiff himself.'

The plaintiff first learned in August, 1918, that there was trouble with his waiver. He thereafter consulted various lawyers and the present bill was filed in May, 1921, the title to the real estate having remained unchanged since the death of the wife.

The finding of the master is not quite clear. We interpret it though with some hesitation, to mean that there was accident and mistake so far as concerns the plaintiff himself; that he had no purpose or design to elect to claim curtesy in the estate of his wife, but only to waive the testamentary provisions made for him by her, and that through some misadventure amounting to accident or mistake on the part of his counsel, the election to claim curtesy was filed contrary to the plaintiff's desire and intention.

[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The two papers as filed were clear in terms and in legal effect. They conformed to the terms of the statute and amounted to the exercise of two distinct, independent and separable rights of the plaintiff with respect to the estate of his wife. Mathews v. Mathews, 141 Mass. 511, 6 N. E. 776. So long as they both stand, they are unequivocal declarations by him. No reason is perceived why the equitable doctrine in favor of relief against the legal consequences of accident or mistake should not be invoked. The act of the plaintiff in filing the election to claim curtesy was the exercise of a personal right. Jones v. Maguire, 221 Mass. 315, 108 N. E. 1073. No contract or attempt to make a contract is involved. The interests of no third party have intervened, because the title is in the same state now as at the death of the wife, except so far as affected by the papers signed by the plaintiff and filed. It is manifest that in the exercise of sound judgment there was no ground in the facts here disclosed for the filing by the plaintiff of an election to take curtesy, while there was ample basis for filing a waiver of the provisions of the will. Naylor v. Nourse, 231 Mass. 341, 343, 121 N. E. 26. The doctrine that ordinarily one must be presumed to know the contents of instruments in writing signed by him and be bound by their legal effect is well settled. Clark v. Boston, 179 Mass. 409, 60 N. E. 793;Wheaton Building & Lumber Co. v. Boston, 204 Mass. 218, 226, 90 N. E. 598;Alemian v. American Express Co., 237 Mass. 580, 585, 130 N. E. 253;Gold v. Boston Elevated Railway, 244 Mass. 144, 147, 138 N. E. 251. But it has no application to cases of mistake. The simple mistake of only one party to written contract as to its contents or legal effect in the absence of misrepresentation, fraud or duress does not amount to a mutual mistake such as alone, in cases of that nature, warrants the interposition of equity to reform or relieve against the consequences of the contract as written. Dzuris v. Pierce, 216 Mass. 132, 135, 103 N. E. 296. That principle is not relevant to the facts of the case at bar, because the plaintiff was the only party to the execution and filing of the election to claim curtesy although the interests of others might be affected by a completed election. When the intent or design of the plaintiff was not to claim curtesy, the filing of a paper of that tenor by a third person, even though his attorney, was an accident or mistake on the plaintiff's part. Taylor v. Buttrick, 165 Mass. 547, 43 N. E. 507,52 Am. St. Rep. 530;Parke v. Boston, 175 Mass. 464, 56 N. E. 718; Fells' Case, 226 Mass. 380, 115 N. E. 430. No intention to elect curtesy can be presumed in direct contravention of the actual intent found by the master. Watson v. Watson, 128 Mass. 152,...