Opinion
No. 32341.
October 26, 1936.
1. APPEAL AND ERROR.
Finding of chancellor on facts on conflicting evidence is binding on Supreme Court.
2. DEEDS.
Evidence sustained chancellor's finding that deed was executed when grantor had sufficient mental capacity to understand nature of transaction.
APPEAL from the chancery court of Tate county. HON. N.R. SLEDGE, Chancellor.
Herbert Holmes, of Senatobia, for appellants.
We recognize fully the rule that the finding of the chancellor on the facts is equivalent to the finding of a jury, but we submit that the chancellor was led astray and caused to render a decision contrary to his own good judgment on a highly technical point, and thereby depriving this appellant of her inheritance and what she was justly entitled to.
The chancellor's opinion should have been that the purported deed supposed to have been executed by Mrs. Farmer should have been cancelled of record, but of course, the complainant not having signed the family agreement and deed, he would have been entitled to a child's part of this land.
Here is a lady practically eighty years of age, slowly dying, and admitted by every witness both for the complainant and defendant who testified as to her mental condition in her last illness stated that in her last months that she was mentally incapacitated.
On a bill to set aside a deed for the mental incapacity of the grantor, the condition of his mind must be determined by the testimony in regard to it at and about the time when the deed was executed, when that differs from the testimony as to previous times.
Exum v. Canty, 34 Miss. 533; Lock v. Jayne, 39 Miss. 157; Brooks v. Brooks, 145 Miss. 845, 111 So. 376.
What evidence is there that Mrs. Farmer intended to sign the deed that was signed? The magistrate testifies that the grantee was not to have possession of the land that year, or did she mean until after her death. Who selected the forty acres that this son had deeded to him? Who wrote the deed conveying him this land? It is admitted by complainant on proof that she could not read the deed and by the overwhelming proof offered by the defendant she did not have the mind to know what she was doing.
In Ham v. Ham, 110 So. 583, 146 Miss. 161, the court sets out what is a fiduciary relation and holds that where a fiduciary relation is established that unless there is evidence of full knowledge and independent consent and action, a deed is presumed to be void as between the parties.
2 Pomeroy Equity Jurisprudence (4 Ed.), sec. 956; Meek v. Perry, 36 Miss. 190; Hitt v. Terry, 92 Miss. 710, 46 So. 829.
The complainants wholly failed to establish that Mrs. Farmer knew what land was being conveyed or that she directed that the deed be prepared or that she selected which forty out of the eighty, or that she read the deed or that she had independent counsel and advice from a neighbor, a friend, or an attorney, or any other member of her family, but the record shows that this son in company with a justice of the peace walks into her bedroom (and presuming for the moment that she had mental capacity), and we find her signing a deed practically disinheriting a daughter and giving to this son a double portion. If Mrs. Farmer had been in possession of all her mental faculties the very nature of this transaction would require the strictest proof and unmistakable evidence to overcome the presumption fixed by law that she had been fairly dealt with.
J.F. Dean, of Senatobia, for appellee.
Almost the entire part of appellant's brief which he terms brief and argument is taken up in the discussion of fiduciary relations. There is not in this record even a hint that appellee occupied any more of a fiduciary relation than did his sister, appellant; one was a son, the other was a daughter; there is no hint that she reposed special confidence or trust in him, that he attended to any of her business, or gave her any sort of advice.
Wherry v. Latimer, 104 Miss. 524.
Without any testimony whatever, appellee could have introduced his deed and rested. Every presumption of law was in its favor.
Wherry v. Latimer, 104 Miss. 524.
It is a universal rule that one is presumed to be sane and of sound mind until the contrary appears.
A grantor in a deed is presumed to be sane and competent at the time of its execution. Old age or physical infirmity raises no presumption of incapacity to make a deed or contract.
1 Wharton Stille's Medical Jurisprudence, page 320; Wherry v. Latimer, 104 Miss. 524; Burnett v. Smith, 57 So. 117.
Admitting for the sake of argument only that the deed to appellant was of evidential value and admitting for the same reason that Hudson's testimony tended to contradict the officer, still the chancellor heard the entire case and the case was submitted on the fact of undue influence or no undue influence, mental incapacity or no mental incapacity and on the facts in the record he found that there was no undue influence and he found from the facts that Mrs. Flora Farmer was sane and capable of executing the deed on July 12, 1933, and the decree of the chancellor on the facts will not be reversed by this court unless manifestly wrong. The chancellor decided both law and facts supported the deed to appellee and to have decided otherwise on this record would have invited certain reversal and we most respectfully ask this court to affirm this cause.
Argued orally by Herbert Holmes, for appellant.
Appellee, C.L. Farmer, filed a bill in the chancery court of Tate county seeking to confirm a title to forty acres of land deeded to him by his mother, Mrs. Flora Farmer, and to prevent appellant Mrs. Maude Langston from further occupying or interfering with its possession. From a decree in favor of the appellee, this appeal is prosecuted.
It was the contention of the appellant in the court below that the deed to C.L. Farmer by Mrs. Flora Farmer was procured at a time when she was incompetent to make a deed, and was induced to do so by undue influence when she was in a depleted condition, both bodily and mentally, and unable to understand the transactions involved.
It appeared that J.W. Farmer, the father of the appellant and appellee, owned a considerable body of land, and his wife, Mrs. Flora Farmer, owned one hundred sixty acres, which J.W. Farmer treated as a part of his property, and that he made a will to dispose of his real and personal property, and that it was contemplated that the appellant would receive a deed to eighty acres of her mother's land as a part of a family arrangement for the division of the property. After J.W. Farmer made his will, he made various deeds to his children conveying to them the lands intended to be conveyed by his will, and after his death Mrs. Flora Farmer, being then more than eighty years of age, made a deed to a sister of appellant conveying eighty acres of land, but she became disabled from a fall in which her hip was broken, in which condition she remained until the day of her death, and therefore unable to execute a deed to the other eighty acres, which, it seems, by some understanding, were to be conveyed to the appellant by her mother, Mrs. Flora Farmer.
There is great conflict in the evidence as to whether or not Mrs. Flora Farmer, at the time she executed the deed of the forty acres to C.L. Farmer, had sufficient mental capacity to understand the nature of the transaction, and the testimony for the appellant tends strongly to show that Mrs. Flora Farmer was utterly incapable of understanding the transaction, while witnesses for the appellee tend to show that at the time she signed the deed, she had capacity to understand, and did understand, what was being done. The greater number of witnesses testified in accordance with the theory of the appellant, but some two or three testified in support of the theory of the appellee.
After the death of J.W. Farmer, there was an agreement between certain of the children of J.W. and Mrs. Flora Farmer to ratify and carry out his wishes, which agreement was not signed by her or C.L. Farmer, nor by Mrs. Flora Farmer.
After hearing the evidence, the chancellor held that the deed to C.L. Farmer was valid, having accepted the proof in support thereof.
Whatever may be said as to the weight of testimony, the finding of the chancellor on the facts, of conflicting evidence, is binding on this court, and we are unable to reverse his decree for that reason. The judgment of the court below will therefore be affirmed.
Affirmed.