Robinson v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 31 December 1974
• Parties: Mark C. ROBINSON et al., executors v. Louise S. ROBINSON (and a companion case between the same parties).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 637

321 N.E.2d 637

366 Mass. 582

Mark C. ROBINSON et al., executors

v.

Louise S. ROBINSON (and a companion case between the same parties).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

Argued Nov. 8, 1974.

Decided Dec. 31, 1974.

James C. Heigham, Boston, for plaintiffs.

W. Hugh M. Morton, Boston, for defendant.

Before QUIRICO, BRAUCHER, HENNESSEY, KAPLAN and WILKINS, JJ.

KAPLAN, Justice.

The marriage of T. Dudley Robinson and Louise Storer Robinson ended in divorce in July, 1972, and Mrs. Robinson remarried. ¹ Mr. Robinson in 1972 brought two equity petitions in the Probate Court for Essex County against Mrs. Robinson, among other things to determine their respective interests in the family home in North Andover (first case), and in various items of personal property (second case), all acquired during the marriage.

In the first case Mr. Robinson claimed a half interest by way of resulting trust in the real estate, record title to which has from the outset been in the name of Mrs. Robinson. The probate judge decreed that the real estate was the property of Mrs. Robinson to the exclusion of Mr. Robinson, and dismissed the petition. In the second case, the probate judge made a number of different dispositions of sundry items of personal property. Remaining in dispute ² are a painting, silverware, and china; in these the judge held Mrs. Robinson had no interest. Mr. Robinson appealed as to the real estate and Mrs. Robinson as to the personal property just mentioned. We have the benefit of reports of material facts in both cases and a joint designation of record on both appeals consisting of exhibits ans testimony of witnesses including notably Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. Our account draws from the reports or facts consistent with them.

1. The house in North Andover. The Robinsons were married in 1940, resided briefly in Cambridge, and then moved to Boxford. In the fall of 1943, after their first child was born, Mrs. Robinson began to search actively for a house that would be more commodious and less remote from Boston. When the brokers showed Mrs. Robinson houses that seemed more or less suitable, she sought the opinions of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie H. Storer, as well as Mr. Robinson. Finally the house at 166 Salem Street, North Andover, was selected. It required extensive repairs and rehabilitation, and the couple did not have the resources. Mrs. Robinson's parents undertook to pay for the work involved. Without the contemplated improvement of the premises the purchase money mortgage could not have been obtained. On March 4, 1944, a purchase and sale contract at a price of $6,000 was executed by the seller and Mr. Robinson. Either Mr. Robinson or Mr. Storer made a $500 down payment (the doubt was not resolved in the testimony). At the closing on March 25, the $5,663.47 due after adjustments was paid as follows: $163.47 by Mr. Storer's check; $1,300 by Mr. Robinson's check; and $4,200 by check of the mortgagee Suffolk Savings Bank for Seamen. The mortgage was for $5,000 with Mr. and Mrs. Robinson signing the mortgage note; by agreement $800 was withheld as an escrow. The deed was in the name of Mrs. Robinson alone, and she has kept the deed among her own possessions ever since. Regarding the deeding of the property to Mrs. Robinson, Mr. Robinson testified that he recognized he was older than Mrs. Robinson and for tax reasons, as he conceived them, he did not want the house to fall into his estate on his death; he referred also to the investment that Mrs. Robinson's parents were to make in the property. On the other hand, Mr. Robinson testified to an understanding with Mrs. Robinson for a joint venture with respect to the property; this Mrs. Robinson said she did not recall, nor was it found by the judge.

Mr. Storer paid the whole cost of the changes and refurbishing of the house amounting to about $10,000 less the remainder of $800 coming in under the mortgage. He supervised the progress of the work on the house which was substantially completed toward the end of 1944. It had previously been agreed that, as part of the remodeling, the 'ell' part of the house would be made into a separate apartment to be used by the Storers; this was done, and until the death of Mr. Storer in 1964, they lived there in the summers. They regularly paid one-half the real estate taxes and their charges for utilities. Over the years sizeable expenditures were made for a driveway, swimming pool, and so forth, as well as for maintenance. Mortgage borrowings to meet the costs (the notes being again signed by Mr. and Mrs. Robinson) were ultimately discharged by Mr. Robinson. Finally, we should mention the probate judge found that in talk of divorce in 1970, Mrs. Robinson offered to give Mr. Robinson one-half the property.

Counsel on the part of Mr. Robinson is prepared to concede that Mrs. Robinson is the beneficial owner of a half interest in the property and would trace this to the Storers' important contribution, but it is not easy to see just why this fraction is chosen. In attempting to establish a resulting trust in Mr. Robinson's favor for the balance, counsel conjures with a number of 'rules' or 'presumptions.' He starts with the commonplace proposition that the person who pays for a conveyance to another is ordinarily entitled to a beneficial interest in the property. Restatement 2d: Trusts, § 440 (1959). He then encounters difficulty with an often cited requirement that to raise such a resulting trust the payment made must be not some general contribution to the price but the whole or some fixed share of it. Compare Frank v. Frank, 335 Mass. 130, 136, 138 N.E.2d 586 (1956), with Bodman v. Martha's Vineyard Natl. Bank, 330 Mass. 125, 129, 111 N.E.2d 670 (1953). See Druker v. Druker, 308 Mass. 229, 230--231, 31 N.E.2d 524 (1941). He also has trouble under the cases in analyzing whether Mrs. Robinson's assumption, as a cosigner of the mortgage note, of an obligation to discharge it, should count as a contribution by her to the price. Cf. Goldman v. Finkel, 341 Mass. 492, 494, 170 N.E.2d 474 (1960); Davis v. Downer, 210 Mass. 573, 97 N.E. 90 (1912). Then he is confronted with a special rule that, where the husband makes a payment to procure a conveyance to his wife, there is a presumption that he intends a gift to her which may overcome the implication of a resulting trust. Krasner v. Krasner, --- Mass. ---, ---, ^a 285 N.E.2d 398 (1972). Frank v. Frank, supra, at 135. This leads him, in an extremity, to argue that as the law of the Commonwealth holds (so he says) that a parallel presumption does not arise when the wife pays for a conveyance to the husband, the special rule should fall as unconstitutionally discriminatory. To this Mrs. Robinson would answer that there can be no constitutional problem about interpretive rules that, at least as of thirty years ago, may have been plausible prima facie guides to intention; she says, further, that properly understood, the law of the Commonwealth is not one-sided, as claimed, but has recognized a corresponding presumption in favor of the husband as conveyee. Compare Glover v. Waltham Laundry Co., 235 Mass. 330, 127 N.E. 420 ...