Sprecher v. Sprecher

• Decision Date: 13 January 1955
• Docket Number: No. 56,56
• Citation: 110 A.2d 509,206 Md. 108
• Parties: Myron A. SPRECHER, etc. v. Teresa I. SPRECHER, etc.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 108

206 Md. 108

110 A.2d 509

Myron A. SPRECHER, etc. v. Teresa I. SPRECHER, etc.

No. 56.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 13, 1955.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Feb. 11, 1955.

Walter C. Capper and Thomas N. Berry, Cumberland (Harold H. Hoffman, Hagerstown, on the brief), for appellant.

T. Aubrey Kemp, Hagerstown, for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

HENDERSON, Judge.

This appeal is from a decree of the Circuit Court for Washington County setting aside a deed from the appellee to Martin L. Ingram, Trustee, dated July 28, 1950, and a deed of the same date from Ingram, Trustee, to Myron A. Sprecher and Teresa I. Sprecher, as joint tenants, with right of survivorship. The ground of the Chancellor's action was that the deeds were executed while the appellee was still an infant, and were disaffirmed by her within four months after she became of age. The appellant contends that the Chancellor erred in refusing to find that the appellee ratified and confirmed the deeds, or at least failed to seasonably disaffirm them.

The property conveyed, a six-room bungalow and lot known as 345 S. Cleveland Avenue, in Hagerstown, was purchased as a home by the appellant and her then husband, Frank B. Sprecher, on May 16, 1939. Title was taken in their names as tenants by the entireties. The price was $3,750, and they executed a mortgage to The First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Hagerstown in the amount of $2,700. The appellee, their daughter, had been born on July 14, 1932, and lived with her parents in the home until they separated on July 12, 1948. At that time the mortgage had been fully paid, out of the husband's wages as a brakeman out of her wages, or perhaps out of their joint earnings since they were both employed, but on July 29, 1948, a new mortgage was obtained in the amount of $1,725. The proceeds were paid to Mrs. Sprecher, who testified that she used the money in part to repay a loan of $1,500 made to her by her mother, who resided in the home with them. On September 10, 1948, the parents and the daughter, who was then sixteen years of age, met with their attorneys, and it was agreed that the property be deeded unconditionally to the daughter, subject to the mortgage. On the same day the parents executed a deed of the property to trustees, who were in fact their respective attorneys, which recited that the conveyance was 'upon trust to convey the same by deed to Teresa I. Sprecher'. On September 13, 1948, Frank B. Sprecher filed a bill for divorce against Mrs. Sprecher, and obtained a decree of absolute divorce on October 8, 1948. On November 13, 1948, the trustees executed a deed to the daughter.

The chancellor found as a fact that at the time of the meeting to discuss a property settlement the father was unwilling that the mother should retain an interest in the property, but agreed that both should convey to the daughter. While the subsequent decree of divorce did not provide for custody, the daughter continued to live with her mother in the property, and the father contributed to the daughter's support until she was eighteen years of age and obtained employment. The Chancellor rejected the appellant's contention that she did not understand that she was parting with her interest in the property, in view of the plain language of the deed and the circumstances of its execution. The validity of these conveyances is not questioned on this appeal, and it is conceded that the infant was competent to take title to the property. See 5 Tiffany, Real Property (3d Ed.) § 1369.

It appears, however, that on June 4, 1949, the appellant took the appellee to the office of the appellant's attorney and had her sign an agreement whereby Myron A. Sprecher agreed to support Teresa I. Sprecher during the period of her infancy and to maintain a home for her and cause her to attend school and high school. Theresa agreed, 'as soon as practical after she shall attain the age of eighteen years', to reconvey the home property to Myron and herself as joint tenants. The appellee was sixteen years old at the time. On July 28, 1950, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, there was another visit to the attorney's office, and the execution of a deed to the attorney, as trustee, and a reconveyance to her mother and herself as joint tenants.

The appellee had graduated from high school in June, 1950, secured permanent employment in August, 1950, and thereafter paid her mother $10 a week board. She testified that she also paid three or four hundred dollars on the mortgage out of her earnings, but this was denied by the mother. On January 25, 1951, the appellee married Francis A. Pheil and shortly thereafter moved to her husband's apartment. Mrs. Sprecher continued to live in the property in question, and is still there. In 1952 she obtained an improvement loan on the property in the amount of $747 and spent it on improvements. The daughter was not asked to join in the application for this loan, or to execute any papers in connection therewith. On September 23, 1953, Mrs. Sprecher married Leroy S. Hite, who moved into the property with his child. The appellee became twenty-one years of age on July 14, 1953. In August, 1953, the appellant asked the appellee to join her in placing another mortgage on the property. The appellee declined to do so and a quarrel ensued. In October she consulted an attorney and on November 10, 1953, she wrote a letter to her mother formally disaffirming the deed she had executed on July 28, 1950. Shortly thereafter she filed the present bill.

At common law the period of infancy extended to the age of twenty-one years in the case of both sexes. 1 Williston, Contracts (Rev.Ed.) § 224; 5 Tiffany, Real Property (3d Ed.) § 1362. By statute in Maryland certain disabilities were removed in the case of females at the age of eighteen. One of the earliest of these statutes was Chapter 101, Acts of 1798, now condified as Code 1951, Art. 93, sec. 206, requiring a guardian to distribute the personal property of a female ward when she became sixteen (later changed to eighteen). See also Code 1951, Art. 93, sec. 158, and sec. 164. But in Davis v. Jacquin & Pomerait, 5 Har. & J. 100, it was held that although she could receive the property she could not dispose of any of it until she attained the age of twenty-one years. See also Fridge v. State, 3 Gill & J. 103, 115. Likewise, in Greenwood v. Greenwood, 28 Md. 369, 385, it was held that the right of a father to services of a female minor continued until she was twenty-one, despite a statutory limitation to eighteen in the case of apprenticing a female child. Statutes have been passed dealing with the right of females between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one to release dower, Code 1951, Art. 16, sec. 43; to make a will, Code 1951, Art. 93, sec. 346; to release an executor, administrator or guardian, Code 1951, Art. 79, sec. 1; to release a trustee, Code 1951, Art. 79, sec. 7; to execute a release for any money paid, property delivered or obligation satisfied, Code 1951, Art. 79, sec. 10; to make a deed of trust of her property, real, personal or mixed, provided the same is approved and sanctioned by a court of equity, Code 1951, Art. 21, sec. 1. See also Code 1951, Art. 21, sec. 2 and Sec. 3. We do not find any statute altering the rule stated in Davis v. Jacquin, supra. A conveyance made by an infant under twenty-one years of age is not void, but is voidable, if disaffirmed within a reasonable time after he or she attains the age of twenty-one years. McBriety v. Spear, 191 Md. 221, 226, 60 A.2d 528; Amey v. Cockey, 73 Md. 297, 303, 20 A. 1071; 1 Williston, Contracts (Rev.Ed.), § 234. We think four months is a reasonable time under the circumstances. See the cases collected in a note, 5 A.L.R.2d 20, 22.

The appellant contends that the appellee ratified the deed prior to her disaffirmance. The appellant testified that in August, 1953, the appellee and her husband, Mr. Pheil, both said they didn't want to live in the...