Hughes v. McDougall

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This mit originated in a bill of complaint filed by the appellee in this case against the defendants and the administrator of the deceased father of .the parties, in which it was sought to have the court declare: a resulting trust in favor of Daniel HaDoragall, Jr., with regard to the property 34 Forth Bentalou Street, and to require .the conveyance of that property free of any trust to the appellee herein. The law governing resulting trusts .and their establishments is, with an exception to be hereafter noted, practically clear and well defined. To establish such, the character of proof which is required when that proof rests in'parol, must be “clear, strong and unequivocal and must establish the fact of the payment of the purchase money by the alleged beneficiary beyond doubt.” Again, it is said that there must be clear indisputable proof that the purchase was made for the party claiming such trust and the purchase money paid by him. 26 R. C. L., page 1231.

Many cases, are there cited as enforcing this view, among them Hollida v. Shoop, 4 Md. 465 . The case so cited only by inference supports this view and was decided by Judge. LeGrand- in 1853. The facts, however, in that case, were quite dissimilar and the case turned upon an application of the Statute of Frauds.

The text of Ruling Case Law' is, however, fully borne out in the follow ³ ing cases: Brawner v. Staup, 21 Md. 328 ; Dryden v. Hanway, 31 Md. 254 . And no where among the adjudicated cases in this State has it been more succinctly stated than was done by Judge Miller in Witts v Horney, 59 Md. 584 , where he says the proof “must be clear, direct and explicit.” .For this statement he cites, among other Maryland cases., that of Thomas v. Standiford, 49 Md. 181 , and the rule thus laid down has been nndeviatingly followed in many eases since. Pickett v. Wadlow, 94 Md. 564 ; Miller v. Miller, 101 Md. 600 , and the very strong opinion of Judge Burke in Dixon v. Dixon, 123 Md. 44 . The effect of this rule is necessarily to. throw the burden of proof of the establishing! of the alleged trust upon the1 party who sets it up, a view which has; been adopted in most of the states of this, country.

This is practically the. only legal question which the present record presents and the conclusion of the case must therefore rest upon the facts and the extent to which Daniel McDougall, Jr., has met the burden of proof which the law1 casts upon him. It becomes necessary, therefore, to. review with some pains the evidence given in the case, making proper allowance for the source from which that evidence comes, and the extent to which it may be. affected by the bias of the witness under examination. The bill itself is. not as clear in some ways as was to have been desired. It recites that in July, 1919, Daniel McDougall, Jr., negotiated for the purchase of the property on Bentalou.

Street and at that time paid some three or four hundred dollars of the agreed purchase money, which was, all told, in the neighborhood of two thousand dollars. The amount is variously spoken of as $2,000 and $2,150 ; nor is there anything in any of the evidence to establish with absolute clarity which of these two sums was the correct amount. Mr. Dunphy, from whom; the property was bought, speaks of it as .a sale for $2,000; the appellee describes it as a purchase for $2,150. ⁴ In July, 1919, Daniel McDongall, Jr., apparently did not have the money with which to complete the purchase, and the hulk of the purchase money was paid by his father, Daniel McDougail, who took a deed for the property in his own name, and it is from that circumstance that the present contention arises. The appellee claims that he paid $2,150 for the property to his father in November, 1919, and it is clearly shown that, .in one of the early days of December of that year, Daniel McDougail deposited that amount with the Equitable Trust Company..

This payment hy Daniel McDougail, Jr., was further evidenced by the production of a cancelled cheek drawn by him for the $2,150, corresponding with an entry of .that amount on .the deposit ticket of the Equitable Trust Company. It as a little difficult to see how if McDougail, Jr., had paid at the commencement to Mr. Dunphy some three or four hundred dollars, there should have been an unpaid balance amounting to $2,150 to he paid to his father. It is of course possible that there were other items entering into this payment, though there is no direct evidence to that effect, hut, for some