Ruebsamen v. Maddocks

• Decision Date: 11 June 1975
• Citation: 340 A.2d 31
• Parties: Emly RUEBSAMEN and Otto Ruebsamen v. Dale MADDOCKS.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 31

340 A.2d 31

Emly RUEBSAMEN and Otto Ruebsamen v. Dale MADDOCKS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

June 11, 1975.

David M. Cox, Bangor, for plaintiffs.

Oscar Walker, Bangor, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

DELAHANTY, Justice.

Plaintiffs Otto and Emly Ruebsamen, father and daughter, brought an action under 14 M.R.S.A. § 6051(4) against defendant Dale MaddocksFormer husband to Emly, for abuse and breach of confidential relations. After trial, the Superior Court (Hancock County) decreed that defendant convey to plaintiffs whatever interest he had in certain real estate owned jointly by the three. Defendant appeals the decision below, and we deny the appeal.

From the facts found by the Superior Court it would appear that sometime before April, 1968 defendant and plaintiff Emly Ruebsamen met, and were engaged to be married. Thereafter, defendant arranged for the purchase of two parcels of real estate in Hancock County, Maine. One parcel was purchased with the funds of plaintiff Emly Ruebsamen, by deed dated April 2, 1968, with title being taken in Emly Ruebsamen's name. The other parcel was purchased with funds furnished by plaintiff Otto Ruebsamen, Emly's father, by deed dated on or about May 10, 1968, with title being taken in defendant's name.

Early in June, 1968 defendant started to build a house on the first parcel purchased. Otto Ruebsamen provided the money which paid for the construction of the house; over the course of time his investment reached $25,000 to $30,000. Mr. Ruebasmen also paid defendant a sum varying between $100 and $300 as weekly wages while defendant was building the house; Emly Ruebsamen supplied food and clothing for both herself and defendant.

On June 28, 1968, Emly Ruebsamen and Dale Maddocks were married. On April 12, 1969, Emly and Dale conveyed their separate parcels of real estate to a straw, and through the straw the parties created a property comprising both parcels, owned in joint tenancy by Otto, Emly, and Dale. It is this joint tenancy property that is the subject matter of the present case.

Sometime after the marriage, defendant abandoned work on the house. He had his wife separated, and on August 6, 1970 they were divorced. On March 25, 1971 plaintiffs filed their complaint to impress defendant's interest in the joint tenancy with a trust and to compel defendant to convey to plaintiffs all his right and interest in the joint tenancy.

The case was tried to the court without a jury. The Superior Court entered a number of findings of fact which bore upon the relations of the parties and which were incorporated in the conclusions and orders of the court. The court found as fact that the original land purchases and the subsequent merger into a joint tenancy were all part of a single transaction and relationship; that the relationship between plaintiffs and defendant was one of trust and confidence; that the plaintiffs were inexperienced in business affairs and relied on defendant; that defendant alone was familiar with the area and the properties purchases; that defendant set the terms of the initial purchase of the two parcels and actively brought about the purchases using plaintiffs' funds; and that the defendant was the dominant party in the relationship, possessing and exercising the influence which naturally flows from a relation of trust and confidence.

The Superior Court also found as fact that the plaintiffs did not intend the joint tenancy conveyance of April 12, 1969 to endow defendant with an interest in real property as a gift; that the plaintiffs did not intend the joint tenancy conveyance to be consideration to defendant for any services; and that defendant had not carried his burden, as the beneficiary of a confidential relation, to prove in fact the entire fairness and validity of his retention of the benefit.

The burden of persuasion as to the existence of a confidential relation rests on the party seeking to establish the existence of the relation. See Mallett v. Hall, 129 Me. 148, 154, 150 A. 531, 534 (1930). The relation must be proved by the customary standard of proof in civil cases, a preponderance of the evidence. See Horner v. Flynn, Me., 334 A.2d 194, 197 n. 1 (1975). While we have not detailed or elaborated those portions of the testimony which tend to support the findings of the Superior Court, there was ample evidence before the Superior Court to support the facts it found and entered in its conclusions. In any case, we cannot say its findings here were clearly erroneous. M.R.Civ.P. 52(a). See Iwanosky v. Iwany, Me., 319 A.2d 339, 339-40 (1974). Our task on this appeal is to consider the facts found below, to determine whether the factual findings may be justified and enforced as a matter of law.

Among our Maine cases, the fullest exposition of the legal nature of confidential relations appears in Eldridge v. May, 129 Me. 112, 150 A. 378 (1930). There, the term 'fiduciary or confidential relation,' as used in the law relative to undue influence, was given a very broad application. The relation was held to embrace both technical fiduciary relations and those informal relations which exist whenever one man trusts in and relies upon another. Id. at 116, 150 A. 379. Thus, the relations and duties involved need not be legal but may be moral, social, domestic, or, merely personal. Id. In a legal sense, confidential relations are deemed to arise whenever two persons have come into such a relation that confidence is necessarily reposed by one and the influence which naturally grows out of that confidence is possessed by the other and this confidence is abused or the influence is exerted to obtain an advantage at the expense of the confiding party. Id.

The salient elements of a confidential relation are the actual placing of trust and confidence in fact by one party in another and a great disparity of position and influence between the parties to the relation. See G. Bogert, Trusts and Trustees § 482, at 136-38 (2d ed. 1960). That the parties are related by blood or marriage may lead a court to find that a confidential relation exists, where there is evidence as to trusting and where the blood or family relationship is in a close degree so that the imposition of great trust and the letting down of all guards and bars is natural. Id. at 144-45. But mere kinship itself does not establish a confidential relation; often relatives are hostile to each other or deal at arm's length and act independently and so are held not to have been a confidential relation. Id. at 145-49.

Our Maine cases bear out the above precepts, and our views as to confidential relations as a matter of law have never been so rigid as to ignore the subtle by-play of fact. Where the facts are extreme, and aged testators, broken in health and enfeebled in mind, are imposed upon by relatives, nurses, or friends, factual findings of confidential relations will be upheld unless clearly erroneous, and those who illicitly benefit from the confidential relations will be stripped of their gains. See Gerrish v. Chambers, 135 Me. 70, 78, 189 A. 187, 191 (1937); Eldridge, supra, 129 Me. at 122, 150 A. at 382. In Small v. Nelson, 137 Me. 178, 180, 182, 16 A.2d 473, 475-76 (1940), the jury found a confidential relation between an enfeebled, opiated 90-year old man and his cousin, but determined that some gifts to the younger cousin were free from the taint of the relationship, and others were not, and this Court would not say that the factfinder was clearly erroneous. Id. at 182, 16 A.2d at 476.

On the other hand, a general allegation of a confidential relation is not a sufficient basis for establishing the existence of one. Clappison v. Foley, 148 Me. 492, 497, 96 A.2d 325, 327 (1953). The facts constituting the alleged relationship must be set forth with sufficient particularity to enable the court to determine whether, if true, such facts create a fiduciary or confidential relationship. Id. at 497, 96 A.2d at 327. An allegation of one party's inexperience or trust will not by itself warrant an adjudication of a confidential relation without a statement of the facts indicating the actual placing of confidence and trust, and the abuse of the relation.

But even where specific facts tend to show intimate dealings, as between family members or friends, the existence of a confidential relationship remains a question of fact and need not be imposed by law. If the parties to a transaction are of mature years and in full possession of their faculties, their continuing lifelong relation as sisters-in-law and friends will not give rise to a confidential relation as a matter of law unless there is evidence of superior intellect or will on the part of the one or the other, or of trust reposed or confidence abused. See Mallett, supra, 129 Me. at 155, 150 A. at 534-35. Neither will the mere legal relation of life tenant to remainderman establish a confidential relation; a confidential relation must be established in fact. Id. at 154, 150 A. at 534.

While the facts in the instant case might be susceptible of more than one interpretation, our review of the Maine law persuades us that the confidential relation found as fact by the Superior Court is permissible within the definition of 'confidential relation'. We are satisfied that plaintiffs Otto and Emly Ruebsamen reposed actual trust and confidence in the judgment and abilities of the defendant. They relied on his business experience in allowing him to procure real estate for them and in paying for the real estate defendant selected. Plaintiffs apparently believed that the land combination urged by defendant presaged a profitable speculation in the Maine wilderness. To that end, plaintiffs advanced substantial funds and services to aid defendant and to further, as they thought, the family cause.

We cannot overthrow the findings of the trial court simply because the...