Williams v. Williams

• Decision Date: 10 February 1885
• Citation: 63 Md. 371
• Parties: GEORGE HAWKINS WILLIAMS, Trustee, v. ERNAULT H. WILLIAMS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

63 Md. 371

GEORGE HAWKINS WILLIAMS, Trustee, v. ERNAULT H. WILLIAMS.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

February 10, 1885

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Baltimore City.

The court below (Fisher, J.) on the 24th of March, 1884, passed a decree vacating and setting side the deed of conveyance made by Ernault H. Williams, the complainant, to George Hawkins Williams, the defendant, in trust, dated the 31st of May 1882, and requiring the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings. From this decree the defendant appealed. The opinion of this court and the dissenting opinion of Judge Miller furnish a sufficient statement of the case.

The cause was argued before ALVEY, C.J., STONE, MILLER, ROBINSON and BRYAN, JJ.

S Teackle Wallis and Orville Horwitz, for the appellant.

1. The leading and singular characteristic of this case is that it has been decided below, and is now argued upon a concession of the gross falsehood of all the controlling averments of the bill. The gravamen of the case made by the complainant is that his father, having great influence and control over him, as parent and counsel, and being desirous to obtain possession of his entire estate and deprive him of his rights, and having for that purpose goaded and driven him into habits of intemperance so as to weaken in advance his powers of resistance, took advantage of an occasion when he was drunk to overpower his will and terrorize him into executing a deed of trust, of the contents of which he knew nothing. Not only is this charge set forth under oath with great emphasis and detail in the bill, but it is repeated by the complainant himself, as a witness, in the most deliberate, detailed and emphatic way. He swears, not that he was deceived by the contents of the deed or misunderstood them, or was ignorant of his rights or his estate, but that he was so drunk at the time he took the deed to the record office that he "didn't know what it was or what was in it;" that he not only did not read it, but ""didn't look at it," and if he had looked at it he "never would have recorded it." In fine he swore in words: "I was so drunk on the day I signed the deed of trust that I did not know what I was about."

This is the case which the complainant furnished to his counsel, and maintained, so far as he could, by his oath. Of this case not one word is true, or has even the color of truth. The court below rejected it altogether, and the evidence of its falsehood is so overwhelming that no effort of counsel can induce this court even to consider it. Indeed, the whole present theory of the case is rested upon alleged fiduciary relations between the parties, and influence unduly exerted by the father to induce the son to accept the provisions of the deed. It is believed to be an anomaly in equity to grant relief upon a bill where it is impossible to take a step in that direction without assuming the entire falsehood of the case deliberately made and sworn to upon personal knowledge. Either the complainant was drunk, or he was not. If he was not, his whole case rests upon flat perjury. If he was drunk and so drunk that he did not know what he was about, it is idle to talk about implied fraud, personal influence or over-persuasion. In such a case there is no possible issue but one of gross fraud in fact--duress or deceit. Concede that a man not only did not know the terms or contents of a deed which he executed, but did not even know what it was and there must be an end of all discussion founded on a criticism of the provisions of the instrument.

2. There is no longer any room to impute fraud, or bad, or sordid, or even interested motives to the appellant. An effort to do so was most strenuously made in the Circuit Court, but received no countenance from the tribunal. "I find," says Judge Fisher, "in the testimony, dispassionately considered, no ground for the imputation to the defendant of the sordid motives of personal gain ascribed to him in the bill, and no reason to doubt that he was actuated by the desire to promote what, from his point of view, he believed to be the welfare and interest of his son. The deed was, in fact, inimical to the personad pecuniary interests of the father." The suggestion of counsel that his commissions as trustee were a temptation to him to defraud his son is too minute for serious consideration. Even if taken into account, such commissions would be insignificant in comparison with the estate which was limited away from him by the deed of trust. And that the appellant, under any circumstances, would be moved by any personal end, and especially by so paltry a consideration, to defraud his son, is rendered impossible of belief by the overwhelming and uncontradicted proof that he is, and always has been, among the kindest, most liberal and indulgent of fathers, and that of his children, the appellee, by reason of his physical infirmities, and in spite of his vices and ingratitude, has been the most indulged of all.

3. All suggestion or imputation of fraud, in fact, having been disposed of by the court below, the case is rested by the learned judge on two grounds, substantially the following:

1st. That the alleged fiduciary relations between the parties render the deed voidable by the appellee as matter of public policy, and

2nd. That the appellee, when he executed it, was in a state of terror induced by surrounding and peculiar circumstances which overmastered his will, and that he was not made sufficiently aware by his father of the gravity of the step he was taking, or required to exercise greater deliberation in taking it.

1st. As to the alleged fiduciary relations: That the appellant was counsel for his son or advised him as such, as charged, is not only wholly unsustained by proof, but is positively and conclusively disproven.

The appellant is the father of the appellee, and was trustee for him till he should reach the age of thirty, under the will of his grandfather. At the time of filing his bill he was about twenty-five.

It is believed to be the law of every case on the subject decided in Maryland, in conformity with the rule everywhere else, that there is no presumption of public policy against a deed from a cestui que trust to any fiduciary, unless it be made at the request or upon the inducement of the latter and for his personal benefit. It must be the case of "a trustee, agent or director, bargaining in a matter of personal advantage to himself individually, with the party reposing confidence in him." Booth v. Robinson, 55 Md. 441; Grove v. Todd, 33 Md. 188; Brooke v. Berry, 2 Gill, 83.

The whole theory upon which the avoidance of such transactions, on grounds of public policy, irrespective of the merits of the individual case, is rested, is to "remove from trustees all temptation to violate their duties by securing to themselves profit and advantage at the expense of those whose property and interests are confided to their charge." Pairo v. Vickery, 37 Md. 467, 484-485. And see Bispham's Equity, 105, sec. 93; Adams' Equity, 60; Hoghton v. Hoghton, 15 Beav. 278; Archer v. Hudson, 7 Beav. 551; Bergen v. Udall, 31 Barb. 9.

The case of Huguenin v. Baseley, 2 W. & T. Lead. Cas. in Eq. 1156, is cited to show that the same presumption exists against the fiduciary, in any conveyance made to or induced by him for the benefit of any third person, although it is free from fraud, and the trustee derives no benefit himself. A careful examination of that case will show that it does not in any way countenance any such doctrine. It was a case of gross fraud in fact, and undue influence, where a clergyman obtained large gifts, from a lady under his spiritual direction, for his own personal benefit and that of his family. The Chancellor justly held--as to the gifts to the family--that they were subject to avoidance precisely as those to the clergyman himself, on the ground that he could no more be permitted to abuse the confidence and influence of his spiritual office for the benefit of his family than for his own, though his family might be innocent. The doctrine laid down was precisely that established in cases where a will or devise is procured by undue influence, viz., that the undue influence, being fraudulent in fact, cannot be countenanced even in favor of innocent beneficiaries. But this is fraud in fact, where the transaction is avoided because it is actually fraudulent, and not because fraud is constructively imputed upon grounds of public policy. All the language in Huguenin v. Baseley relied on in argument relates to and is predicated of the actual fraud found by the court.

Such is the construction placed in England as well as this country on that case. See Middleton v. Sherburne, 4 Younge & Collyer, Exch. 390, 391. And it manifestly could not have been otherwise, for the court would have had no occasion to consider the actual fraud on which it dwells if the transaction had been inoperative on the plainer and simpler ground of public policy, whether actually fraudulent or not. There is not one word in the case to affect the rule of this court as announced in Pairo v. Vickery, supra, that the doctrine of public policy imposes no prohibition upon fiduciaries, except where they acquire rights "which may bring their personal interests in conflict with the discharge of their official duties." And it will be remembered that in this case the "third parties" spoken of, and always characterized as the "other children" of appellant, are the brothers and sisters of the appellee, his heirs-at-law, to whom it would be presumed that he would be as likely as his father to desire that his estate should go, if he should die childless.

3. It is hardly necessary to notice the contention that the execution of the deed impeached was procured by the...