Spiva v. Boyd

• Decision Date: 27 October 1921
• Docket Number: 2 Div. 752
• Citation: 90 So. 289,206 Ala. 536
• Parties: SPIVA et al. v. BOYD.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

90 So. 289

206 Ala. 536

SPIVA et al. v. BOYD.

2 Div. 752

Supreme Court of Alabama

Oct. 27, 1921

Appeal from Circuit Court, Wilcox County; B.M. Miller, Judge.

Bill by Mrs. Annie F. Boyd against E.D.H. Spiva and others to set aside and annul a deed. From a decree granting the relief prayed, respondents appeal. Affirmed.

Mrs Boyd filed her bill in August, 1920, to set aside a deed executed by her in October, 1908, by which she conveyed to E.D.H. Spiva and his sister, Annie Spiva Oxford, a certain farm of 600 acres in Wilcox county, in which she expressly reserved a life interest for herself. The grantees were nephew and niece of the deceased husband of the grantor, and unrelated to her by blood. The complainant was about 62 years of age when she executed this deed, and said E.D.H. Spiva was 58. For several years before the death of his uncle complainant's husband, which occurred in May, 1908, Spiva had attended to renting this farm for him and collecting the rents. He attended his uncle's funeral, and at that time reminded complainant that it was his uncle's wish that after her death this farm should go to him and his sister and when he stopped over at complainant's house in October, 1908, he asked her if she had fixed up the papers for him and his sister which they had talked about in May, and she said she would do so while he was there, and the sequel was that Spiva went to town and brought out complainant's attorney, Clarence Jones, who prepared the deed in question after consultation with complainant, and also a deed giving the home place to her niece Miss Boykin, who lived with her, with a similar reservation of a life estate in the grantor. These deeds were executed and acknowledged at the same time. Spiva had lived in his uncle's family until he was 21 years old, 1871, and then moved away, and had seen them but seldom, not more than once a year during the several years preceding this transaction. He did not see complainant nor have any correspondence with her between the date of her husband's death in May, 1908, and this transaction in October. When he was with her in May, he told her he would look after renting this farm and collecting rents for her so she would have no worry about it. So far as appears, he was not her business adviser, and served her only as stated.

Sam Lee Jones, of Camden, and Craig & Craig, of Selma, for appellants.

Bonner & Miller, of Camden, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

At the time when the complainant executed the deed which she here seeks to set aside, the procuring grantee undoubtedly stood in a relation of trust and confidence to the grantor, being not only a nephew of her husband's and in a sense a member of the family, with whom her relations were intimate and affectionate, but he occupied also the position of managing agent of the farm here involved.

In the case of Waddell v. Lanier, 62 Ala. 349, it was said:

"All transactions between trustee and cestui que trust, guardian and ward, attorney and client, principal and agent, parent and child, are narrowly watched and jealously scrutinized in courts of equity. In all the variety of the relations of life, in which confidence is reposed and accepted, and dominion may be exercised by one person over another, the court will interfere and relieve against contracts or conveyances, when they would abstain from granting relief, if no particular relation existed between the parties, in which trust and confidence was reposed and accepted, and there was not an opportunity for an abuse of confidence and the exercise of undue influence. *** The relation of principal and agent is affected by the same consideration which influences the court in dealing with transactions between persons standing in other fiduciary relations. *** It is *** certain that agents are not permitted to become secret vendors or purchasers of property which they are authorized to buy or sell for their principals; or, by abusing their confidence, to acquire unreasonable gifts or advantages; or *** to deal validly with their principals in any case, except when there is the most entire good faith, and a full disclosure of all the facts and circumstances, and an absence of all undue influence, advantage, or imposition."

That statement was approved in Burke v. Taylor, 94 Ala. 530, 532, 10 So. 129, 130, where it was further said:

"In all such cases, the burden rests on the party claiming under the deed, to prove satisfactorily that it is just, fair and equitable in every respect, and not on the party seeking to avoid it to establish that it is fraudulent."

The deed recites that it is made "for and in consideration of love and affection...