Lewis v. Snowden

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The grantee in a deed appeals from a decree which set the deed aside as null and void. The property involved is a parcel of land in Montgomery County improved by a small dwelling in which lived Anna Hackett and Elijah Hackett, her second husband. Anna Hackett had inherited the property from her mother.

In 1944, a niece of Elijah Hackett, Lyla Elizabeth Lewis, the appellant, who had just come out of a tuberculosis sanatorium and who was on relief, came to live with the couple and remained there until 1951. It is disputed whether she came by their invitation or at her own. In 1949, a deed which conveyed the property to Lyla Elizabeth Lewis, with the reservation of life estates in the grantors, was purportedly signed by Anna and Elijah Hackett and was duly recorded. In 1952, at the instigation of William Snowden, a son of Anna Hackett by her first marriage, who then learned of the deed, Anna and Elijah Hackett filed a bill of complaint to set aside the deed.

Thereafter, Lyla Elizabeth Lewis took Elijah Hackett to a lawyer’s office, where he signed a paper dated May 5, 1952, directing the clerk to dismiss the suit as to him: “. . . the same never having been authorized by me.” On November 15, 1952, Elijah Hackett, describing himself as plaintiff in the case, gave notice to the court that his wife, Anna Snowden Hackett, had died the month before, on October 14, and requested the substitution, as a party plaintiff in lieu of Anna Hackett of: “. . . her adult only son and heir at law, William A. Snowden”, and the court made the substitution. Elijah Hackett testified that he had authorized the institution of the proceedings, denied the execution ⁵⁸⁶ of the deed and, in accordance with a suggestion of the chancellor in his opinion, was reinstated as a party complainant before the decree was signed. The bill of complaint of the Hacketts against Lyla Elizabeth Lewis, the appellant, alleged that the couple were the owners of the home in question and that the appellant forged their names to a purported deed which conveyed the property to her, reserving a life estate only in them. There was a further allegation that the appellant was employed in the home at a nominal wage to take care of them, and: “. . . used deceit and forgery in order to execute or cause to be executed said paper writing.” The prayer asked that said paper writing be declared null and void and of no effect, and for other and further relief.

The answer denied the forgery and asserted that the appellant had been invited to live in the home and had bought food and done all that was necessary for the maintenance and support of her uncle and his wife, -and that she had never been paid for any of her services. Testimony was taken before an examiner, directed almost solely to the question as to whether or not the signatures of the grantors had been forged. The chancellor, in his opinion, did not discuss nor directly decide whether the signatures had been forged but by necessary inference, evidently found that they had not, because he said: “They deeded the property to her.” He then went on to hold that a confidential relationship existed between the parties and that the appellant had failed to meet the burden of showing that the transaction was completely fair. He said, referring to the appellant: “Her evidence does not satisfy the Court the surrounding circumstances were such as to make this elderly woman want to leave the only property she had to a niece by marriage, instead of her son.” The finding of the chancellor, to be inferred from his opinion and decree, that the deed had not been obtained by forgery, is supported by the evidence.

The pleadings were directed only to this issue and not to the issue of confidential relations and the testimony merely skirted ⁵⁸⁷ the latter issue. As a result, we find it impossible to determine whether there was a confidential relationship, and if so, whether the