Quinn v. Quinn

• Decision Date: 08 July 1927
• Parties: QUINN et al. v. QUINN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

260 Mass. 494

157 N.E. 641

QUINN et al.

v.QUINN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

July 8, 1927.

Appeal from Supreme Judicial Court, Suffolk County.

Suit by Mary E. T. Quinn and another against Rose M. Quinn, administratrix of the estate of Daniel J. Quinn, and individually. From interlocutory and final decrees for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Interlocutory decree affirmed, and final decree reversed.J. J. Cummings, of Boston, for appellant.

J. F. Bassity, of Boston, for appellees.

RUGG, C. J.

The plaintiffs seek by this suit in equity to have a resulting trust declared in their favor in certain real estate. It is alleged in the bill that the plaintiffs are children of Margaret Quinn, now for many years deceased, and that the defendant is the widow and administratrix of Daniel J. Quinn, who was a brother of the plaintiffs and who died without issue in April, 1922, having been married less than a year; that the respondent asserts that the real estate in question is the property of the estate of said Daniel and that the plaintiffs have no right or interest therein save as heirs of said Daniel; that the money used for the purchase of said land was furnished equally by the plaintiffs and said Daniel, the title being taken in the name of their mother as trustee, and that it was agreed by the four that the mother should hold the land in trust for the plaintiffs and said Daniel, each cestui que trust to be entitled to an undivided one-third equitable interest therein; that shortly after the conveyance to the mother she made a declaration of trust wherein she declared that she held the land in trust for Daniel in fee after her death; that the mother, who was unable to read or write, intended to make, believed and stated on subsequent occasions that she had made, such a declaration of trust as would leave to the plaintiffs and said Daniel an equal interest in the land; that she stated that each of her said children had contributed to the purchase price of said land; that it was understood, believed and agreed by the plaintiffs and said Daniel that each had one undivided third interest in the ownership of the land, and that the plaintiffs always have so understood and believed until the assertion by the defendant after the death of Daniel that the latter was the sole owner thereof. The defendant demurred to the bill on the grounds of want of equity, the statute of limitations, laches, and the statute of frauds.

[1] The allegations of the bill of equal contributions by each of the three children toward the purchase of the property sufficiently state a resulting trust founded on the established principle of equitable jurisprudence that, where one buys and pays for the whole or any definite fractional part of real estate and the title is taken in the name of another, a trust results in favor of the one who pays the consideration, which may be enforced in equity against the grantee named in the deed. Howe v. Howe, 199 Mass. 598, 600, 85 N. E. 945,127 Am. St. Rep. 516.Davis v. Downer, 210 Mass. 573, 575, 97 N. E. 90.

The deed to the mother discloses on its face that she held title as trustee, although the trusts are not there declared.

[2] It is alleged in substance in the bill that there was no repudiation of the trust until after the death of Daniel in 1921. The bill was filed in October, 1922. Hence neither the statute of limitations nor laches appears as a bar on the face of the bill. Lufkin v. Jakeman, 188 Mass. 528, 530, 531, 74 N. E. 933;Allen v. Stewart, 214 Mass. 109, 113, 100 N. E. 1092;Stewart v. Finkelstone, 206 Mass. 28, 35, 36, 92 N. E. 37,28 L. R. A. (N. S.) 634, 138 Am. St. Rep. 370.

[3][4][5] If it appears on the face of a bill in equity that an agreement is oral when by the statute of frauds it must be in writing, advantage may be taken of this by demurrer. Ahrend v. Odiorne, 118 Mass. 261, 268,19 Am. Rep. 449. If that fact does not appear on the face of the pleadings, demurrer does not lie for mere omission to allege that the agreement was in writing. Price v. Weaver, 13 Gray, 272;Southwick v. Spevak, 252 Mass. 354, 147 N. E. 885. As matter of pleading the bill in the case at bar sets up such a trust as does not come within inhibitions of the statute of frauds, and as may be proved by parol. Peabody v. Tarbell, 2 Cush. 226, 232.

[6] The reference in the bill to the declaration of trust executed by the mother does not bind the plaintiffs to its terms because they were not parties to it. See Blodgett v. Hildreth, 103 Mass. 484, 487, and Johnson v. Von Scholley, 218 Mass. 454, 457, 106 N. E. 17. And hence does not neutralize and is not fatal to the previous sufficient allegations setting forth a resulting trust. The demurrer was overruled rightly.

[7] The case then was sent to a master. Since the evidence is not reported, his findings of fact must be accepted as true. It appears that the plaintiffs, their widowed mother and their brother Daniel in 1899 orally agreed to buy land and build a house thereon, for the use of the mother during her life and at her decease to pass in equal shares to the three children. Pursuant to this understanding the land was bought and the house built. The deed was made in the name of the mother as trustee with habendum to ‘the said Margaret Quinn, Trustee and her heirs successors and assigns.’ Her purpose in thus taking title to the property was to hold it in trust for her own life and upon her death for her three children, the plaintiffs and Daniel, each child to have one-third undivided interest. Daniel had full knoweldge and understanding of this purpose and intention, as did also the plaintiffs, and they all acquiesced and approved. The cost of the land and building was at least $8,600. The proceeds of a mortgage for $5,000 were used to defray a part of the cost. Of the remaining $3,600 Daniel contributed $1,600 and the plaintiffs and their mother $2,000, the contribution of each not being found. When the time came to put the mortgage upon the property, the prospective mortgagee was dissatisfied with the condition of the record title in the name of the mother as trustee. The four then interested in the property conferred and some of them in behalf of the four consulted an attorney. It was agreed by the four that one of the three children should appear on the record to hold the property upon and after the death of the mother for the three children; the others first suggested the plaintiff Mary as the one so to hold it, but she declined and suggested Daniel and he with the knowledge and approval of the others consented so to serve. In the effort of the four to put the record title in a condition satisfactory to the prospective mortgagee, the same attorney drafted an instrument termed a declaration of trust and dated December 16, 1899, which was signed by the mother by her mark. This instrument, after referring to the deed to the mother as trustee, stated in substance that the mother held the title in trust for herself during her life with remainder after her death to Daniel in fee discharged of all trusts, the trustee also having the right to sell, convey, mortgage and lease the property during the trust ‘as freely as if the same were held by her individually.’ The mother then was advanced in years and without knowledge or experience in matters pertaining to real estate. In signing and executing this instrument she ‘did not intend, in any contingency, to provide that her son Daniel upon her death should have the entire beneficial interest in the property.’ On the contrary, she ‘intended to provide and understood and believed that she was providing,’ ‘if the property were undisposed of to third parties during her life, that upon her death Daniel would hold the property in trust for himself’ and the plaintiffs, ‘each to have one-third undivided interest.’ Upon the completion of the house and at the time of the execution of the declaration of trusts, these four Quinns lived together as a family, all being then unmarried, in one of the two tenements of the house built on the land thus bought, and they continued to do so until the death of the mother in 1905; and thereafter until 1921 the three children already named lived in the same tenement as one family. In the latter year Daniel was married and he then moved into the other tenement in the house. The plaintiffs, after the mariage and removal of Daniel, continued to be unmarried and to occupy the same tenement. No question of rent ever was raised among the plaintiffs and their mother and Daniel. After the death of the latter, the defendant demanded rent of the plaintiffs. Rent of the one tenement rented was collected by the mother as long as she lived, and thereafter by the plaintiff Mary until the marriage of Daniel, who then began to occupy the remaining tenement and there was no rent. The rent thus collected was exhausted in paying interest, taxes and repairs on the property. The plaintiff Francis, who had a substantial income from a hack business, from 1891 to 1899, without retaining any fixed sum for himself turned over the net income to his mother, neither as a gift to her nor as money belonging to her, but as his earnings and as his money, with the understanding that she might use it for the family needs. Daniel from 1893 to 1899 paid his mother substantially $10 per week for his board. The plaintiff Mary saved considerable money, which was subject to the same uses by her mother as was the income of the plaintiff Francis. In 1907 the plaintiff Mary, after conference with the plaintiff Francis, and with Daniel, advanced $1,000 for the reduction of the mortgage on the property. No part of this advancement belonged to Daniel and it was not in any sense a gift to him and he never repaid any of it. She simply advanced--

‘the $1,000 to reduce the mortgage indebtedness on property in the beneficial ownership of which she believed-and to the knowledge of Daniel believed-she had one-third...