Street v. Goss

• Decision Date: 31 January 1876
• Parties: MARY T. STREET, et al., Respondents, v. OCTAVIA GOSS, et al., Appellants.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

62 Mo. 226

MARY T. STREET, et al., Respondents,

v.OCTAVIA GOSS, et al., Appellants.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

January Term, 1876.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court.

Dryden & Dryden, with M. Kinealy, for Appellants, cited Gavin vs. Williams, 50 Mo., 213; French vs. Shotwell, 5 John's Ch., 556; Upton vs. Bassett, Cro. Eliz., 445, 3 Co., 83 a; Smith vs. Harris, 43 Mo., 557; Grosser vs. Edmonds, Yon. and Col., 481, 500; McMahon vs. Allen, 34 Barb., 56; Morrison vs. Deaderick, 10 Humph., 342.

R. E. Rombauer, with John P. Hudgens, for Respondents, cited 1 Story Eq., §§ 238, 246; Homes vs. Fresh, 9 Mo., 201; Cadwallader vs. West, 48 Mo., 483; Yosti vs. Loughran, 49 Mo., 594; 1 Wagn. Stat., 272, § 1; Ibid., 605, § 16; Rankin vs. Harper, 23 Mo., 579; Herrington vs. Herrington, 27 Mo., 560; Bobb vs. Woodward, 50 Mo., 95.SHERWOOD, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was brought to set aside two conveyances bearing date February 22nd, 1864, whereby Mrs. Melanie Brazeau conveyed to her son-in-law, agent and adviser, John McCaffrey and to her daughter Eulalie, his wife, as tenants by the entirety, two tracts of land, one of which contained 57 74100 acres, and the other, in which she had a five-sevenths interest, 28 40100 acres, for an expressed consideration of $9,200.00 John McCaffrey and wife, two of the original defendants, as well as Kennedy Street, one of the former plaintiffs, have, since the commencement of this suit, died. The petition charged that these conveyances were procured by an abuse of the relations existing between McCaffrey and Mrs. Brazeau, an aged woman, upwards of seventy years old, and in feeble health; that the consideration expressed in the deeds was merely nominal, the lands conveyed being of much greater value; and that no part of the consideration had ever been paid. The answer denied these allegations, but the trial court found them to be true, and decreed accordingly.

We are asked to reverse the action of the lower court for various reasons, chief among which is the absence of evidence on which to base the decree. Let us examine the principal grounds urged for a reversal. There is some conflicting testimony as to minor details, but the testimony taken as a whole, leaves no room to doubt the substantial allegations of the petition. Mrs. Brazeau, enfeebled by age, and its attendant infirmities, is induced by McCaffrey, her son-in-law and agent, in whom she had the greatest confidence, to execute the deeds in question, to avoid being harassed by the pressure of debts amounting in the aggregate to about $4,000.00, the larger portion of which was secured by deed of trust on one of the tracts conveyed. The two tracts were worth several thousand dollars in excess of the amount expressed in the deeds; and that consideration was merely nominal, McCaffrey never paying anything at the time, to Mrs. Brazeau, and only in subsequent years to her creditors, by means of a fresh incumbrance in lieu of a former one. He, however, although possessed of property worth only some $700, agreed to assume the debts of his mother-in-law. That he did not claim the land as his own, is evident from his own express admissions repeatedly made, and by his acts utterly inconsistent with any other reasonable hypothesis. Mrs. Brazeau leased one of the tracts in the fall of 1864 for three years to Dr. Evans at a rental of $400 a year. She died November 15th, 1866. McCaffrey who it seems was absent when this lease was made, upon being informed of it proceeded to collect the rents as the agent of his mother-in-law, signing his name to receipts in that capacity, and describing the land as the “farm of Mrs. Brazeau” down to the time of her death, when he suddenly becomes possessed of the fact that he is no longer “agent,” and accordingly drops that useless appendage to his name and ceases to describe the...