Todd v. Grove

• Decision Date: 01 July 1870
• Citation: 33 Md. 188
• Parties: VACHEL B. TODD v. SAMUEL E. GROVE and Ruth Grove, His Wife, Adm'x of Benjamin Todd.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

33 Md. 188

VACHEL B. TODD v. SAMUEL E. GROVE and Ruth Grove, His Wife, Adm'x of Benjamin Todd.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

July 1, 1870

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Howard County.

The bill of complaint in this case was filed on the 6th of August, 1867, by the appellees for the purpose of vacating and annulling certain transfers and gifts of private securities, and United States seven-thirty and five-twenty bonds to the amount of nearly $50,000, made in December 1866, by Benjamin Todd, the deceased husband of the appellee Ruth, to his brother, the appellant. The bill was filed in behalf of the widow in her own right, and as representing in her character as administratrix, the distributees and next of kin of the deceased. Its material allegations together with a very complete analysis of the facts of the case, will be found in the following opinion of the Circuit Court: The material allegations of the bill are, that the defendant abandoned his residence in Illinois and came to Carroll County, for the purpose, then declared by him, of obtaining from his brother a large proportion of his property in case of his death, his brother being then in a wretched state of health; that the defendant accordingly fixed his residence in Carroll County with his brother, and then proceeded, by the assiduous use of artifice and undue influence, continued up to the time of his brother's death, to work upon his mind, then greatly impaired and weakened by sickness, to procure from him such a disposition of his property during his life, as would at his death defeat his widow's right of dower and interest in his personal estate, and also defeat the legal rights of his other representatives and distributees; that the said Benjamin became weaker in body and mind from day to day as his life drew near to its close until the autumn of 1866, when his condition was such that he was no longer able to resist the persistent and fraudulent arts and importunities of the defendant, and by these means the latter induced his brother to make certain conveyances of real estate, and to assign and transfer to him, without any consideration, the private securities and bonds referred to and if these latter were not placed in his hands simply as custodian for the benefit of the distributees, but are claimed as a gift, then that such gift was fraudulently obtained by means of such artifices and undue influence for the purpose of defeating the legal rights of the complainant and the other legal representatives of the deceased. The answer of the defendant, Vachel Todd, denies all fraud and undue influence, and avers that he came to Maryland at the urgent request of his brother, who was aged and blind, and was invited to take up his abode with him and attend to his business, and that in the early part of December his brother gave him these private securities and bonds in the presence of witnesses, and that this gift was his brother's free, unconstrained and voluntary act, made when he was of sound mind and perfectly aware of the transaction.

The parties being thus at issue, a mass of testimony has been taken, the case argued and submitted for decision. It is a case of great interest and importance, both as to the amount of property and the principles of law involved, and has been argued with remarkable ability by counsel on either side. To these arguments the court is greatly indebted for a clear and comprehensive review of the law, and an elaborate and masterly analysis and application of the evidence.

In the first place, it is all important to ascertain clearly the relation in which the donor and donee stood to each other at the time these gifts were made. Benjamin, the donor, then blind, crippled and quite advanced in life, being some sixty-five or seventy years of age, married the complainant, his third wife, on the 4th of April, 1866. He was possessed of considerable real estate, and a very large personal property. He never had any children by his several wives, but had a natural and acknowledged son, Jesse Todd, who was married, had children, lived with him, and attended to all his business for him. To this son and to his children, he appears to have been much attached. He had three brothers, two of whom, Charles and Vachel, resided in Illinois, where they had lived for many years, and the other, Samuel, in Frederick County. He had also numerous nephews and nieces, children of a deceased brother, and of two deceased sisters. In the summer of 1866, his son, Jesse, became sick with consumption, unable to attend longer to his affairs, and was evidently fast approaching the grave; it, therefore, became necessary for him to seek someone else to aid him in his business affairs, and to attend to the management of his property. It appears he first asked his brother Charles, then on a visit to him, and then applied to a nephew, James H. Brown, the only son of a deceased sister, both of whom declined. He then, on the 13th of August, through his wife, wrote a letter, which was mailed the 11th of September, to his brother Vachel in Illinois, requesting him to arrange his business out there, and come in and live with him in his house, and to attend to his business for him. The defendant thereupon sold out his personal effects in Illinois, and, with his wife and daughter, came to Maryland early in October, took up his residence in the same house with his brother, and, according to the averment in the answer, which is abundantly supported by the proof in the case, had the whole care and custody of all his brother's large, real and personal estate, and acted as his agent in the transaction of all his business, from that time until his death, which occurred on the 31st of December following. Whilst this relation subsisted between them, in the early part of December, the gifts and transfers in question were made; that of the private securities on the 5th, and that of the bonds some few days or a short time thereafter.

The relation, therefore, of principal and agent, in reference to its extent and character, the agency extending to the transaction of all the business and the management of all the affairs of the principal, is precisely such as existed in Brooke v. Berry, 2 Gill, 83, and to which the court in that case applied the law as laid down in Story's Eq. sec. 315, that it is for the common security of all mankind, that gifts procured by agents, and purchases made by them from their principals, should be scrutinized with a close and vigilant suspicion; and indeed, considering the abuses which may attend any dealings of this sort between principals and agents, a doubt has been expressed, whether it would not have been wiser for the law, in all cases, to have prohibited them; but be this as it may, it is very certain agents are not permitted, by abusing their confidence, to acquire unreasonable gifts or advantages from, nor can they deal validly with their principals in any cases, except where there is the most entire good faith and a full disclosure of all facts and circumstances, and an absence of undue influence, advantage or imposition; and this is the law when the mind of the principal is free from all imputation of imbecility. The case of the defendant is, therefore, clearly within the rules and principles of equity which govern transactions between parties standing to each other in a confidential relation.

The next inquiry is, to what extent have these principles been carried, and what are the proper limits of their application ? Upon this point a large number of authorities have been cited in argument, and to review, though we have examined all of them, would here be impracticable if not a useless labor. Most of them are collected in the notes to Huguenin v Basely, 2 Lead. Cases in Equity, 54-75, and in 1 Story's Eq. secs. 307-323, will be found a very able and complete statement of the law by Judge Story, as it stood when that work was written. Our attention has been called to some recent English cases of high authority, not found in either of the above references, and they have laid down a rule which would relieve this case of all difficulty, if adopted and followed. In Rhodes v. Bate, 1 Ch. App. 256, decided in 1866, the opinion of the court was delivered by Sir G. J. Turner and concurred in by Sir Knight Bruce, in which the learned Judge says: "I take it to be a well-established principle of this court, that persons standing in a confidential relation towards others, cannot entitle themselves to hold benefits which those others may have conferred upon them, unless they can show to the satisfaction of the court, that the persons by whom the benefits have been conferred, had competent and independent advice in conferring them. This, in my opinion, is a settled general principle of the court, and I do not think that either the age, or capacity of the person conferring the benefit, affects this principle. Age and capacity are considerations which may be of great importance in cases in which the principle does not apply; but I think they are but of little, if any, importance in cases to which the principle is applicable. They may afford a sufficient protection in ordinary cases, but they can afford but little protection in cases of influence founded upon confidence. And, as to the nature of the benefit, the injury to the party by whom the benefit is conferred, cannot depend upon its nature. This general principle, however, must, as it seems to me, admit of some limitation. It cannot, I think, reasonably be said that a mere trifling gift to a person standing in a confidential relation, or a mere trifling liability incurred in favor of such a person, ought to stand in the same position as a gift of a man's whole property, or a liability involving it, would stand in. To...