Shea v. Shea

• Decision Date: 04 December 1936
• Citation: 296 Mass. 143,4 N.E.2d 1015
• Parties: SHEA v. SHEA et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

296 Mass. 143

4 N.E.2d 1015

SHEA v. SHEA et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

December 4, 1936

Suit by Sarah A. Shea against John Shea and others.From an interlocutory decree sustaining a demurrer and a final decree dismissing the bill, plaintiff appeals.

Reversed.

Appeal from Superior Court, Essex County Morton, Judge.

T. A Henry, of Salem, for appellant.

F. E. Shaw, of Lynn, for appellee.

DONAHUE, Justice.

The plaintiff, as executrix of the will of her husband, Michael E. Shea, has brought this amended bill in equity against her husband's brother, John Shea.He demurred.The demurrer was sustained by a judge of the Superior Court on the following grounds stated in the demurrer: that the plaintiff and her husband were guilty of unreasonable delay and laches in bringing the bill, that the plaintiff has not stated such a case as entitles her to relief in equity, that the allegations are indefinite and conflicting and do not disclose with clearness the causes of action intended to be set forth, that the facts are not alleged with substantial certainty, clearness and brevity, and that the bill is multifarious.

Facts recited in the bill, which for the purposes of the demurrer must be taken as admitted, are here set forth.The decedent was engaged from 1898 until his death in 1928 in occupations and enterprises which were profitable.During that period his brother, hereinafter called the defendant, occupied a position of trust and confidence with respect to the decedent's financial affairs and was entrusted with the care, management and custody of practically all the securities and monies of the decedent.They were treated by the brothers as the property of the decedent.The defendant accepted their care, custody and management in trust for the benefit of the decedent.The plaintiff was married to the decedent in 1911.He was then an invalid and from that time until his death was unable to do any work.He owned a lodging house in Lynn which was profitably managed for him by the plaintiff during that period.After the marriage the decedent told the plaintiff that she would be ‘ well off’ in the event of his death although he never stated to her the total amount of money and securities owned by him.

On several occasions in 1926 and 1927the plaintiff heard the defendant and her husband discuss going to the bank to ‘ fix things up’ between them but for various reasons, including the illness of her husband, nothing was done about it.In December, 1927, the decedent told the defendant that he intended to move to Brookline, that it would be difficult for him thereafter to come to Lynn and that he wished to have the defendant go to the banks with him and fix things up before the removal to Brookline.This the defendant agreed to do.Later in the same month the defendant called at his brother's home and said that he had lost a key of some box at the bank and that the visit to the bank must be deferred until he found the key or got a new one and said that as soon as he did so he would go to the bank with the decedent.

In January, 1928, the plaintiff and her husband moved to Brookline.The defendant came to their house in the latter part of February, 1928.He told them that all the securities and money of the decedent which had been entrusted to his care, management and custody were gone and that he had lost everything that he himself owned as the result of an unfortunate chance he had taken in the stock market and other business reverses.The bill alleges that these statements were false and fraudulent and that the plaintiff and her husband were thereby deceived.The health of the decedent was further imparied upon learning that all his earnings and savings had been lost and he died on March 30, 1928.

The plaintiff was the sole beneficiary under her husband's will which she proceeded to probate.She was wholly deceived by the false and fraudulent representations which the defendant had made that he had lost all the property entrusted to him by the decedent and also all his own property.She filed in June, 1928, an inventory showing a bank deposit of $1,715.66 as all the assets of the deceased which had come to her possession and knowledge.

Until after August, 1934, the plaintiff had no knowledge that the defendant had not lost everything belonging to her husband and all his own property as he falsely and fraudulently represented in February, 1928.The defendant had not disclosed the fact that he had a safe deposit box or account in a bank in Lynn in his own name while he was entrusted with the property of the decedent.

On information and belief the plaintiff alleges in her bill that the defendant has enriched himself unjustly and has kept and coverted to his own use assets that belong to the estate of the decedent to the value of $25,000 to $40,000.The bill also alleges that the defendant now has money or securities of the decedent in a safe deposit box or account in the Lynn bank or in some other bank unknown to the plaintiff.

The bill adequately expresses as the grievance of the plaintiff, for which she seeks relief in equity, the failure of the defendant to account for property held by him in trust.The allegations as to misrepresentations and conversion of the fund and as to the result thereof deal with matters so closely connected with the primary grievance of the plaintiff that they do not justify holding the bill to be multifarious.Pease v. Parsons,259 Mass. 86, 88, 156 N.E. 4;Hermanson v. Seppala,255 Mass. 607, 610, 152 N.E. 363;Digney v. Blanchard,226 Mass. 335, 339, 115 N.E. 424;Ginn v. Almy,212 Mass. 486, 493, 99 N.E. 276.

One ground of the defendant's demurrer is that the plaintiff's bill does not state a case which entitles her to relief in equity against the defendant.A general demurrer to a bill, thus founded, must be overruled if the bill sets out facts calling for any equitable relief.Skolnick v Greenburg,230 Mass. 359, 361, 119 N.E. 792;Carleton & Hovey Co. v. Burns,285 Mass. 479, 484,189 N.E. 610.The bill alleges that the defendant had been entrusted by his brother with money and securities which were still in the defendant's hands or under his control when the bill was brought.The facts alleged show the creation and existence of a fiduciary relation between the defendant and his brother and a breach of its obligations by the...