Williamson v. First Nat. Bank of Williamson

• Decision Date: 08 December 1931
• Docket Number: 7016.
• Parties: WILLIAMSON v. FIRST NAT. BANK OF WILLIAMSON et al.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

164 S.E. 777

111 W.Va. 720

WILLIAMSON v. FIRST NAT. BANK OF WILLIAMSON et al.

No. 7016.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

December 8, 1931

Submitted November 3, 1931.

Rehearing Denied April 25, 1932.

Second Petition for Rehearing Denied June 11, 1932.

Syllabus by the Court.

Where antenuptial agreement precedes marriage contract, generally no confidential relationship exists between parties at time.

Where no confidential relationship existed at time of antenuptial agreement, defendants do not have burden to prove complainant knew, or should have known, extent and value of husband's property.

1. Where an antenuptial agreement precedes and is preliminary to a marriage contract, no confidential relation between the parties exists ordinarily, until the latter contract is made and the law governing their rights under the former contract is the same as applies to contracts of persons between whom no confidential relation exists.

2. Unless a confidential relationship existed between parties to an antenuptial contract when it was made, it is not incumbent on defendants sued to set it aside for fraud and misrepresentation, to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that complainant knew the extent and value of her husband's property, or circumstances sufficient to charge her with knowledge.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Mingo County.

Suit by Ellen Blair Williamson against the First National Bank of Williamson and others. Decree for the plaintiff, and the defendants appeal.

Reversed and the bill dismissed.

HATCHER and MAXWELL, JJ., dissenting.

S.D Stokes, of Roanoke, Va., James Damron, of Huntington, and John F. Hager, of Ashland, Ky. for appellants.

Randolph Bias, Lafe B. Chafin, Lant R. Slaven, and Wells Goodykoontz all of Williamson, and Joseph Warren Madden, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellee.

HATCHER J.

The court is divided on this case. I am not of the majority, but, as the preparation of the opinion was originally assigned to me, will attempt to stat e the views of the majority and later dissent.

Wallace J. Williamson and Ellen Blair were married in 1917. Prior to the marriage, they executed a contract, adjusting their marital property rights. He died in 1929, testate. The will limited his wife to the amount specified in the antenuptial contract, except as to some household goods, live stock, automobiles, etc. She renounced the will, and demanded of his estate in this suit the portion allotted her as wife by law. The defendants relied on the antenuptial contract. The circuit court found in her favor and canceled the contract. The defendants appealed.

The majority of the court refuses to accept any of the testimony of plaintiff in her own behalf; consequently, in preparing a general statement of the evidence, I have omitted any fact which depends on her evidence alone.

About 1884, Mr. Williamson, then 39 years of age, a handsome widower with four children, and a resident of Catlettsburg, Ky. came to what is now Mingo county, W. Va., and engaged in the timbering business. There he met Ellen Blair, then about 15 years old, illiterate but very beautiful. He fell in love with her, and she gave him her heart. He courted her ardently, openly, and aggressively, presented her to his brother's family as his intended wife, and started her in school. Either through lack of application or of interest, Ellen made no educational advancement. In 1885, while on a trip to Catlettsburg, he married a Miss Clinefelter. He later explained to his cousin, Jane Evans, that the reason he did not marry Ellen (in 1885) was because she was uneducated. Within 2 months after his second marriage, he commenced sending letters to Ellen, confiding to his messenger, Elijah Ferrell, that since his first wife died he had loved no woman but Ellen. Shortly afterwards he virtually abandoned his wife and established Ellen in a home at Naugatuck on his timber operation, where he spent most of his time, and where she served and ministered unto him with intelligence, loyalty, and devotion almost continuously for the following 30 years--a wife in everything but name. She described her life at Naugatuck in these laconic sentences: "I stayed at home and made garden and raised chickens, and tended to the cows and cooked and washed and ironed. *** I done all that was to be done and what he (Mr. Williamson) told me to do and what I thought would satisfy him. *** I worked to his advantage. *** I tended to him day and night (during illness) and done everything a woman could do." Disinterested witnesses confirmed this description, and testified without contradiction to acts and conduct by her, which materially promoted his logging business. She said of him that he was "as kind as he could be," and gave her no occasion to doubt his love. The record discloses no stain upon her life except the scarlet letter she wore because of him. He was a shrewd business man, but his education was limited. Dr. Tunis Nunemaker, a witness for defendants, was their physician at Naugatuck, and was intimately acquainted with them for years. He testified that they were congenial and were interested in, and devoted to, each other.

In 1912, Mr. Williamson's second wife died, without issue. In January, 1915, he conveyed to plaintiff a tract of 103 acres at Naugatuck in satisfaction of all claims she had against him, whether for services rendered or to be rendered "or on account of any agreement, promise, default or undertaking whatsoever made by him," except a note of $3,500 he owed her for borrowed money. If this settlement indicated a breach, it was soon healed by his solicitude for her during an attack of appendicitis. He took her to a hospital in Columbus on June 5, 1915, for an operation and remained with her until she was discharged on July 4th. Shortly after their return to Naugatuck he failed in health and was taken to Denver, Colo. Some time after returning from Denver, he began arrangements to marry her. He requested William Dameron, deputy county clerk, who issued the marriage license, to keep the matter a secret, saying his sons were "raising Cain about him wanting to get married to Ellen, but he thought he owed it to her." The marriage was performed on January 3, 1917. On January 2d he had her sign the contract in question, agreeing that, in consideration of $1,000 cash and $20,000 to be paid her upon or before his death, she would relinquish all the claims against his estate to which she would be entitled as his wife. He was a kind and "a very devoted husband" said the Honorable M. Z. White, a witness for defendants. Miss French, a trained nurse who attended Mr. Williamson continuously during the last 12 years of his life, testified as a witness for defendants that Mr. Williamson and plaintiff seemed "to be perfectly contented with their marriage lot," and that he was very solicitous about her welfare. His estate is valued at about one and a half million dollars.

The plaintiff testified that she could not write her name and did not sign the 1917 contract; that she had no memory of such paper being read to her; that, if it was read to her, she did not understand its terms (they were phrased in technical language); that she did not remember ever seeing or hearing of the contract until after her husband's death; and that at the date of the alleged contract she did not know the extent or the value of Mr. Williamson's property.

The record shows that plaintiff has remained practically as illiterate as when Mr. Williamson abandoned her education in 1885. She can read only with great difficulty, and, if she could sign her name in 1917, it was done mechanically. It is proved, however, by witnesses of integrity that she went through the motions of signing the contract, and that "a brief statement as to the main terms of the contract" was made to her at the time. It is also proven that in after years she recalled its provisions in a general way.

Equity ordinarily does not permit a mail to drive a hard bargain with his prospective wife, without full disclosure of all the material facts. The law is clearly stated in Madden on Domestic Relations (the latest work thereon), § 73, as follows: "Persons about to marry are considered as occupying a relation of special trust and confidence toward one another. The usual consequence of confidential relationship follows, that the burden is upon the party, here the husband or his heirs, who profited by the contract, to show that it was entered into only upon a full disclosure of all the material facts. The most material fact, of course, is the extent of the property of the husband in which the wife gave up her rights. The burden is not upon the wife to inquire into this fact and the fact that she did not take advantage of her opportunities to obtain information about it does not prevent her from assailing the settlement. The husband must have disclosed it, unless the wife actually knew it from other sources. *** If the provision secured for the intended wife is disproportionate to the means of the intended husband, it raises a presumption of fraud or concealment, throwing upon those claiming in the husband's right the burden of disproving the same."

These principles are so deeply imbedded in American jurisprudence that extensive citation of authority seems unnecessary. See Hinkle v. Hinkle, 34 W.Va. 142, 152, 153, 11 S.E. 993; Dehart v. Dehart, 109 W.Va. 370, 372, 154 S.E. 870, 871; Cole v. Blankenship (C.C.A.) 30 F. (2d) 211; 9 R.C.L., subject Dower, § 41; 19 C.J., subject Dower, § 149, 151; Schouler on Domestic Relations (6th Ed.) § 513.

The majority of the court does not question the above statement of the law, but excepts this contract therefrom on the following grounds: (1) That while executed on January 2 1917,...