In Re Ritter

Parke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Sidney M. Ritter lived in Baltimore County on her small farm, .with her husband and family. It was a leasehold property of about nineteen acres and three roods, subject to■ a ground rent of one cent, which apparently has not been paid for many years, so we shall speak of the property as. freehold for the purposes of this opinion. Mrs. Ritter died in 1868 and devised and bequeathed the farm and the stock and farming, implements to her surviving son, Howard T. Ritter, on conditions subsequent which were stated in this ¹²⁹ form by the will: “the said Howard T. Ritter is to pay my oldest son, John T. Ritter, the sum of ($300.00) three hundred dollars within six years from the date of my death, and he the said Howard T. Ritter is to take eare of and provide a home for his brother, George E. Ritter, who is a lunatic, as long as he lives, to be kept and provided for at home on the place where I now live, and he the said Howard T. Ritter is to take care of and provide a home for his afflicted brother, Hiram A. Ritter, also to take care of and provide a home for his aged father, Thomas Ritter, during his life.” This quotation embraces everything in the will that has any bearing on the questions here.

The devisee of the farm accepted the gift, lived on it, and discharged his obligations until his death on October 31st, 1887, when he gave by his will the farm and the stock and the farming implements to William Howard Owings. The devise of the farm, so far as it reflects on the question involved on this appeal, read thus: “Item. I give, devise and bequeath unto my nephew, Wm. Howard Owings, son of Henry Owings, and now a resident of Baltimore City, my farm and premises on which I now dwell situated in the Second District of Baltimore County, Maryland, and containing 19% acres of laud, more or less, it being the same piece or parcel of land that was conveyed to me from my mother, Sidney M. Ritter, by will dated on the first day of April, 1867, to him the said Wm.

Howard Owings, his heirs and assigns, in fee simple; to have and to hold the same, subject to the following conditions and qualifications, viz: He shall take my place and stead, and do what I am required and held to do under and by the provisions of my mother’s will aforesiad, in providing and caring for my two brothers, George E. Ritter and Hiram A. Ritter.” William Howard Owings took possession of the farm under the will, and now holds it. George E. Ritter and Hiram A. Ritter both survived their brother, Howard T. Ritter. ¹³⁰ In 1901, a bill of complaint for an accounting was filed by Hiram A. Eitter in his own name and in the name of his insane brother, George E. Eitter, against William Howard Owings, charging that George E. Eitter had been placed on October 13th, 1886, in the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, where he remained as an insane pauper; and that Hiram A. Eitter had been forced on March 22nd, 1901, to leave his horn© on the farm because of cruelty of treatment by Owings, who was alleged to have failed to provide him with food and clothing so that he was driven to rely upon charity for his home and support. The defendant denied the allegations on February 5th, 1902; and, pending the proceedings, Hiram A. Eitter died. Carville D. Benson became his administrator, and the court passed a decree on January 23rd, 1904, directing that the defendant and his wife pay to the administrator the sum of two hundred dollars and the funeral expenses, and the further sum of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a's counsel fees for solicitors for complainants and the costs; and dismissing the bill upon the payments being made.

Nothing was awarded to the co-plaintiff, the lunatic, the sums named were paid, and the bill was dismissed. On the dismissal of this bill, the lunatic, George E. Eitter, was the surviving beneficiary under the will of Sidney M. Eitter, and he was incurably insane in an asylum where he was maintained at the expense of the State. The mother in her will called George E. Eitter a lunatic, and he was found by inquisition had in the Circuit Court for Baltimore Oounty, to be an insane pauper, and, accordingly, on Hovember 11th, 1886, was committed to Spring Grove State Hospital, from which he escaped on July 12th, 1887. He returned to the farm, where he was given a comfortable home and clothed and fed until in July, 1888, he voluntarily left, completely disappeared and was at large until July 3rd, 1891, when he came back to the farm.

He was again given a home, fed and clothed, and the afiirmative, positive proof is that William Howard Owings continued ¹³¹ fully to perform and discharge all his obligations to the lunatic until, without his instigation or knowledge and in his absence, the law officers came and took him back to the State asylum, to which he was committed but from which he had escaped. The testimony of Dr. Percy J. Wade, the alienist and superintendent of Spring Grove State Hospital, where Eitter came under his personal observation, was to the effect that it was not safe for Eitter to he at large and that it was necessary to keep him confined all the time in a hospital for the insane. There is not a particle of evidence offered in contradiction, and, on the other hand, the instances of misconduct, — of attack upon the daughter and wife of Owings, threats of violence and to kill, and, on one occasion, of an actual attempt on the life of a neighbor with a loaded shotgun, — which were narrated in the proof, without any attempt at palliation or denial, afford convincing illustration that the confinement in an insane asylum was necessary. The record is persuasive that it would have been an injustice to Eitter not to have put and kept him where he would at once he prevented from doing injury to others and, in physical ease and comfort, he cared for, waited on and nursed with a skill and attention which was wholly beyond any possible performance or obligation on the part of Owings.

The lunatic was kept as a public patient in Spring Grove State Hospital until be died, on January 11th, 1918. Owings paid the funeral expenses, but beyond visiting him and taking or sending Mm quite frequently delicacies, he contributed nothing to the expense of his maintenance at the hospital. One other phase requires statement. In 1911, William Howard Owing's desired to borrow $1,000 of Eedmond C. Stewart, trustee, to be secured by a mortgage on the farm.

When the title was examined the provision with respect to George E. Eitter was discovered, the circumstances were investigated, and, when it was found that George E. Eitter ¹³² was an old man, hopelessly and violently insane, and committed to a public institution, it was determined to accept the farm as security for the loan, but, in order to remove any doubt as to the title, Mr. Stewart frankly said that he had advised the institution of proceedings for the appointment of a committee of the person and property of the lunatic in order that a release might be obtained of the personal right of the lunatic to have a home and maintenance on the farm. Accordingly, some three weeks after the making of the said loan and mortgage, a petition was filed on March 18th, 1911, for the writ de lunático' inqmrendoand the usual order and proper service of process upon the lunatic were had. On petition, the court excused the personal attendance of the lunatic, an inquisition was returned confirmed, and eventually J. Ered Owings was appointed and qualified as committee. The petition for writ de lunático inqmrendo was aecompanied by an affidavit of Or.

J. Percy Wade, the superintendent of Spring Grove Asylum, where Eitter had been continuously confined since April 29th, 1892, to the effect that he had known the lunatic for eighteen years, and that during this period he had been and was of unsound mind. The inquisition returned by the sheriff showed that the jury had found that, for more than twenty years, Eitter had been a lunatic, without lucid intervals, and incapable of the government of himself or the management of his property; and, further, that his estate consisted of an interest in the farm under the will of his mother, Sidney M. Eitter, “being the right to make a home on said piece of property, but the amount and value thereof they are- unable at this time to ascertain.” The committee’s report and petition to the court fully set out the provisions under the wills of Sidney M. Eitter and of Howard T. Eitter under which the lunatic’s right arose; and referred to the equity cause of Pliram A. Eitter and George E. Eitter against William H. Owings, and stated the effect of the decree, and prayed that all the proceedings in that cause be taken as a part of ¹³³ the report. After this informative narrative, the committee averred that he had been advised that the lunatic had “a personal right to make a home on the aforesaid land, if he were in a physical condition which would enable him to make his home there, but that the said George E. Bitter lias on account of his physical condition for the last twenty years been confined in the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, and is now a man of upwards of seventy years of age, and in poor health, and it is extremely improbable that he will ever attain such physical condition as will allow him to leave the said institution where he is now, and has been as aforesaid for many years, a charge on Baltimore County,” and represented to the court the advisability of attempting to dispose of the interest of the lunatic in the farm for his support or for the payment of the costs and expenses of the lunacy proceedings incurred by the committee. Bagby’s Code 1924, art. 16, sec. 125; Rutledge v. Rutledge, 118 Md. 557, 561 .

The court, on this verified petition and report, authorized the committee to make sale of the interest and estate of the lunatic in the farm at private sale and to report “all offers he may receive for the said interest to this court for its further consideration.” The committee reported under oath to the court an offer from William Howard Owings of $75 for a release of all the interest of the lunatic and of the committee in the farm. The reasons given by the committee for the acceptance of this offer were, in effect, that he had been advised that the interest of the lunatic had been intended to have been satisfied by the decree and dismissal of the equity cause of Hiram A. Bitter and George E. Bitter against William II. Owings, and that he had no other interest in the farm than his right to make his home on the farm and while there to be supported, which, in the opinion of the committee, he would never be able again to enjoy by reason of his age and of the nature of his affliction; and that the offer of the owner of the land was the only way of realizing oir this possibility. ¹³⁴ The court ordered the offer to be accepted.and the release to be executed on the payment of the consideration, which the committee was directed to 'apply to the payment of the costs of the proceedings, and the balance, if any, to pay to the County Commissioners of Baltimore County towards the support and maintenance of the lunatic. The purchase money was paid to the committee, who gave the deed of release to William Howard Owings on May 1st, 1911.

The lunatic remained at the hospital, where he died on January 11th, 1918, without any property. His sister, Mrs. Beleima A. Henderson, with her husband, Hugh L. Henderson, procured letters of administration on ISTovember 17th, 1923, in order to institute the present proceedings, which were begun by their petition filed in the lunacy proceedings on December 15th, 1923. The petition was grounded on the allegations: (1) that William Howard Owings had permitted the lunatic to be committed to the hospital as an insane pauper, and had “made no effort to care for or provide & home for the said