Stone v. Curtis

• Court: Maine Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: HANSON, J.
• Citation: Stone v. Curtis, 115 Me. 63, 97 A. 213 (Me. 1916)
• Decision Date: 25 April 1916
• Parties: STONE v. CURTIS.

97 A. 213

115 Me. 63

STONE

v. CURTIS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

April 25, 1916.

Report from Supreme Judicial Court, Penobscot County, at Law.

Action by Arthur W. Stone, administrator, against Charles W. Curtis. On report. Judgment for defendant.

Argued before SAVAGE, C. J., and CORNISH, KING, HALEY, HANSON, and PHILBROOK, JJ.

Morse & Cook, of Bangor, and F. D. Dearth, of Dexter, for plaintiff. Harvey D. Eaton and Carl C. Jones, both of Waterville, for defendant.

HANSON, J. On report. The plaintiff's intestate was the wife of the defendant. At the date of their marriage the plaintiff gave his wife $2,000, or more, and it is conceded that some years later he received that sum from her and used the same, with other money, to pay his outstanding debts. They lived together many years after that occurrence, and, so far as the case discloses, the wife never made demand for an accounting, kept no record of the transaction, and at her death in 1913 left no will or memorandum in which the same was mentioned.

The plaintiff upon qualifying as administrator acted upon information received from Charles G. Viele, stepson of the defendant, who had written the latter concerning the transaction, and had received from him two letters. These letters were introduced by the plaintiff in support of his claim that the transaction was a loan and not a gift.

The action was brought upon the following account annexed:

Dexter, Maine, March 23, 1915.

Charles W. Curtis to Estate of Annie V. Curtis, Dr.

1888, July 1st.

To money lent at his request............

$2,000 00

To interest on same from July 1, 1888, to March 23, 1915, at 6 per cent. Per annum ..........

3,207 20

$5,207 20

Credit

By interest paid from July 1, 1888, to July 1, 1899.......

120 00

Balance due.........

$5,087 20

There was also a count for money lent and accommodated by intestate, etc.

The defendant, with the general issue, filed a brief statement in which he set up as a further defense—

"that if any sum was ever due the plaintiffs intestate, the same has been paid by the transfer of certain bank stock, to wit, two shares of the Continental National Bank of St. Louis, Mo., valued at $600, and ten shares of the First National Bank of Dexter valued at $1,500."

The defendant offered no evidence as to the transfer of stock, but the plaintiff's attorney introduced testimony which he says proves that while the latter stock was so transferred, it was again used by the plaintiff's intestate, and by her voluntarily assigned as security for a further loan by the defendant at a local bank.

The testimony in relation to the last-named transaction, when considered alone, adds little, if any, weight to the claims of either party, and, recognizing this, counsel have confined themselves largely to a discussion of the legal effect of the letters in the case, and rightly so. The letters follow:

"Plaintiff's Exhibit l, Charles W. Curtis.

"Dexter, Maine, March 6, 1914.

"Mr. Chas. G. Viele, Taylorsville, N. C—My Dear Mr. Viele: Yours of the 2d inst. is received. I had hoped to find in your expected letter some advice as to how the packages Ada had sent you by express stood the racket of transportation. I have been a little anxious as to the glass reaching; you without breakage. Five Pkgs. went to Omaha by freight, one of them having frames with the glass in them. Don't expect to hear from these for some weeks yet.

"The point in your letter which seems to call for special reply is the postscript pertaining to the $2,000. You probably may not have been fully advised as to my losing my fortune along about '98? In helping to finance a loan and investment company in St. Paul, in which I had some interest, in common with five or six others in Dexter and vicinity, I allowed myself to become guarantor on $8,000 of the company's paper, just before the panic of '93. Too long a story to this matter to be recited here. I could have avoided paying this $8,000 through insolvency provisions; but I decided to pay it all; taking all I had given your mother with her consent of course, which included the $2,000. It was too humiliating a thought to me to avoid paying all my debts, legal and moral, direct and indirect. By getting credit for $2,000 to be earned later I accomplished my ambition in the matter. At no time however in my darkest financial days, had I died would your mother have been left without sufficient means for an independent living. Four of our bank directors, all being the most wealthy in the place, lost their fortune at the same time or about same time, that I did mine, and none of them regained any part of the loss.

"It required some nerve to put away every dollar and begin at 70 to rebuild one's fortune. I shall need the deed that Ada took to refer to in making quitclaim deed. I asked her to let me take it that I might take such data as I would need for the purpose, but she had it packed in her trunk, and was in a hurry to get ready for an unexpected leaving. Hope I have made the matter plain. C. W. Curtis."

"I found some difficulty in getting the money for your mother's last visit south. She proposed to sell her curios for the purpose, she was so much determined to make that visit. I was very fortunate in having a good influential friend, 'A power behind the throne,' who secured me the comparatively good job of bank examiner, by holding which till I was near 80 I saved enough to make a respectable patch on my broken fortune. Of the $600 your mother received for bank stock I gave her, she gave a poor widow $100 to enable her to get to the Old Ladies' Home in Bangor. She gave freely of her means in other directions.

"Very truly, C. W. C."

"Plaintiff's Exhibit 2, Charles W. Curtis.

"Dexter, Maine, March 9, 1914.

"Dear Mr. Viele: I have yours of the 5th inst. inclosing copy of deed, and making inquiry as to consideration for same. As far as my memory goes there was no real consideration passed in the matter. The consideration named in deed seems to be the usual conventional phraseology of lawyers where the consideration is only nominal. There were no conditions made when your mother relinquished what I had previously given her, and this deed was a voluntary act on my part, with the purpose to protect her as far as possible in the event of my passing away first. As the equity which this deed stood for at first...