Starzec v. Kida

• Decision Date: 27 January 1981
• Citation: 438 A.2d 1157,183 Conn. 41
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Mary STARZEC et al. v. Helen KIDA, Executrix. (ESTATE of Clara M. STARZEC).

Page 1157

438 A.2d 1157

183 Conn. 41

Mary STARZEC et al. v. Helen KIDA, Executrix.

(ESTATE of Clara M. STARZEC).

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Nov. 7, 1980.

Decided Jan. 27, 1981.

Gerald S. Sack, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was Edward S. Ludorf, Hartford, for appellant (defendant).

Morton E. Cole, Hartford, with whom, on the brief was Cyril Cole, Hartford, for appellees (plaintiffs).

Before COTTER, C. J., and PETERS, HEALEY, PARSKEY and ARMENTANO, JJ. COTTER, Chief Justice.

The defendant appeals from the trial court's imposition of a constructive trust in favor of Walenty and Catherine Starzec's children, the stepchildren of the defendant's decedent, Clara Starzec. The plaintiffs are the four children of Walenty and Catherine.

Walenty Starzec and his first wife Catherine purchased a three-family dwelling at 225 Stanley Street, New Britain, as joint owners with rights of survivorship. Upon Catherine's death Walenty became the sole owner of the real estate.

On November 12, 1949, Walenty married a widow, Clara Sliwa Moskal, the defendant's decedent. They resided at 225 Stanley Street during the eleven years of their very happy, close, loving marriage. However, they kept their property separate.

On Friday, February 17, 1961, Walenty knew he was dying of cancer. He telephoned his eldest daughter, Mary, and asked her to come to his home and witness what he and Clara were going to do with the house. On the same day, Mary came to Walenty's house, and witnessed an oral agreement between Walenty and Clara, in which Clara promised to leave Walenty's home to his children upon her death. Chester Sledzik, an attorney, then arrived to prepare Walenty's will. After the attorney left, Clara repeated her promise in the presence of Walenty and Mary.

At trial, Sledzik testified that Walenty told him that he was sick, old and could not come to the lawyer's office, but that he wanted the will executed as quickly as possible because "he was going to be dead on Monday." On the following day, when the lawyer returned, Walenty executed the will which on its face gave all his real property outright to Clara without limitation, and which named Clara executrix and the plaintiffs his residuary beneficiaries. At the same time, Clara executed a separate will, in which she bequeathed her entire estate to Walenty. Walenty died on Monday, as he had predicted. Clara held title to the real estate upon Walenty's death.

Clara executed a new will on March 25, 1965. The plaintiffs only learned about this will after she died on October 3, 1973. It gave twenty-seven small bequests of cash to various individuals, including two of the plaintiffs. A residuary clause gave the remainder of Clara's estate including her interest in 225 Stanley Street to her niece and executrix, the defendant. On February 22, 1974, the plaintiffs presented the defendant with their claim against Clara's estate for the real property at 225 Stanley Street. When the defendant disallowed the claim, the plaintiffs petitioned the Superior Court for a judgment declaring them to be the lawful owners of the real estate. Following a trial, the court found: that a confidential relationship permeated the agreement between Clara and Walenty to leave 225 Stanley Street to his children; that Clara abused this confidential relationship by failing to abide by her promise; and that allowing the defendant to retain the property would result in unjust enrichment. The court imposed a constructive trust and rendered judgment for the plaintiffs. ¹

Equity employs the constructive trust to remedy the unjust enrichment which results when a testator leaves property to a person in reliance on that person's subsequently disregarded promise to convey the property to the testator's intended beneficiary. Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204, 23 A. 1085 (1891); Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, 205 (1874); Redke v. Silvertrust, 6 Cal.3d 94, 98 Cal.Rptr. 293, 490 P.2d 805 (1971), cert. denied 405 U.S. 1041, 92 S.Ct. 1316, 31 L.Ed.2d 583 (1972); Olsen v. First National Bank, 76 S.D. 605, 83 N.W.2d 842 (1957). See comment, 27 Yale L.J. 389 (1918).

Sound policy seeks to safeguard titles to land and frustrate fraudulent claims against the estates of deceased persons. ² Therefore, before a court imposes a constructive trust upon real property on the ground that one deceased failed to fulfill a promise to another, the facts from which such trust may be implied should be clearly and satisfactorily established. Cf. Wilson v. Warner 84 Conn. 560, 564-65, 80 A. 718 (1911). ³

The defendant does not seriously dispute that a confidential relationship existed between Walenty and Clara. Moreover, she admits that Clara abused the confidential relationship if Clara promised Walenty that she would leave the property to his children.

The defendant argues that Clara's declarations ⁴ taken by themselves are unclear meaningless, or at best ambiguous, that the trial court erred in admitting certain declarations of Walenty, and that without the disputed declarations there is insufficient evidence to support the trial court's determination that Clara agreed to leave 225 Stanley Street to Walenty's children and hence that the court erred in imposing a constructive trust.

The defendant's argument underestimates the weight of Clara's declarations. Its suggestion that Clara's declarations should be "taken by themselves" ignores the general principle "that the whole of a verbal utterance must be taken together." (Italics omitted.) 7 Wigmore, Evidence (Chadbourn rev. 1978) § 2094, p. 604. Although no generally accepted formula defines the boundary between separate utterances and "the whole of an utterance"; 7 Wigmore, op. cit. § 2119, p. 670; a question and its response; Engel v. Conti, 78 Conn. 351, 353, 62 A. 210 (1905); Barnum v. Barnum, 9 Conn. 241, 248 (1832); Phelps v. Foot, 1 Conn. 387, 391 (1815); and other forms of dialogue; State v. Tropiano, 158 Conn. 412, 420, 262 A.2d 147 (1969), cert. denied, 398 U.S. 949, 90 S.Ct. 1866, 26 L.Ed.2d 288 (1970); Gray v. Greenblatt, 113 Conn. 535, 538-39, 155 A. 707 (1931); may form one statement. ⁵ To the extent an admissible answer incorporates the question to which it responds or depends on the question for its meaning, it makes the question admissible. Engel v. Conti, supra. ⁶

In the dialogue leading to Clara's promise, Walenty incorporated his statement, "I decided to give the property at 225 Stanley Street, for life use to Clara, as long as she lives and then she promises me to give it back to the children," into his question, "Is that right, Clara, you promised?" Clara's answer, "Walenty, on my honor before God, your children will have it after I'm gone," becomes intelligible in the light of Walenty's question. Hence, the trial court properly admitted Walenty's part of this dialogue. Engel v. Conti, supra.

This colloquy also illuminates the conversation after the lawyer left, in which Walenty stated, "Well, Clara, I did what I was supposed to do and now it's up to you to make sure that you do what you're supposed to do as you promised me." To this statement Clara replied, "Everything will be all right, Walenty. Don't worry."

The court based its conclusion that Clara orally agreed to leave 225 Stanley Street to the plaintiffs not merely on these and other declarations, which Clara made in Walenty's presence on February 17, 1961, but also upon the history of her marriage to Walenty, the love and close relationship between Walenty and his children, his awareness of the imminence of his death, and Clara's execution of a will on the next day leaving all her property to Walenty. In this appeal, the plaintiffs do not challenge the admission of any of this additional evidence.

In reaching its conclusion the trial court also relied on the fact that throughout their marriage Clara and Walenty maintained their financial holdings separately. Attorney Chester Sledzik's and Mary Starzec's unchallenged testimony supports the inference that Walenty was the sole owner of 225 Stanley Street until he died. Agnes Hogan, another of Walenty's daughters, also testified that, during his marriage to Clara, Walenty stated that 225 Stanley Street was in his name and that he wanted it to stay that way because he wanted that property for his children. ⁷ Furthermore, Mary Starzec testified, without objection, that Clara had no survivorship interest in Walenty's bank accounts and that Clara received mortgage payments from two homes in Hartford that she had sold. This testimony by three witnesses amply supports the trial court's subsidiary determination that both Walenty and Clara segregated their property from the other's.

Clearly admissible testimony proved by clear and satisfactory evidence, in accordance with the standard in Wilson v. Warner, supra, that Clara promised to leave 225 Stanley Street to Walenty's children upon her death. Hence, we decline to decide whether the trial court erred in relying on General Statutes § 52-172 to overrule hearsay objections to other declarations of Walenty which tended to prove that he and Clara kept their property separate, because the defendant has failed, on appeal, to demonstrate probable harm to her from any of those rulings. Berndston v. Annino, 177 Conn. 41, 45, 411 A.2d 36 (1979); Wood v. Connecticut Savings Bank, 87 Conn. 341, 349, 87 A. 983 (1913).

Courts may use the equitable device of a constructive trust to remedy the unjust enrichment which results from not disposing of property as promised after the promise induced someone with whom the promissor shared a confidential relationship to transfer the property to the promissor, Cohen v.Cohen, --- Conn. --- pp. ---, ---, 438 A.2d 55 (1980).

The plaintiffs clearly and satisfactorily established that Clara made her explicit promise in the context of Walenty's full confidence and trust in her, her implicit reassurances of faithfulness, and his knowledge of his terminal illness,...