Nealon v. Travers

Sloan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a judgment- in favor of the appellant, who sued her son-in-law, the appellee, in assumpsit on the common counts. The only exception is to the granting of the two prayers of the defendant (appellee), by which all of the items in the bill of particulars were excluded except one. The bill of particulars claimed compensation for services as housekeeper, at $8 a week for 110 weeks from May 10th, 1927, to February 10th, 1930, $1,120; $280 for use of fur ³²⁶ niture used by the defendant for the same period; use of household linens for 132 weeks, at $1 per week; washing and ironing aprons for 128 weeks, $1 per week; rendering lard for defendant’s meat market for 72 weeks at $3 per week; $25 for a one-half interest in the furniture left by her daughter; $77.60 cash distribution to her as distributee.of the daughter’s estate; and $130.20 balance on a loan of $200 made by the appellant to the appellee in April, 1929.

All of the items except the last were excluded by the prayers to which exception was taken. The evidence on behalf of the plaintiff, none having been offered by the defendant, shows that for many years, the plaintiff, now seventy-one years of age, made her home with the'defendant and his wife, the latter the plaintiff’s daughter. Most of the furniture and linens were the plaintiff’s; she having given up housekeeping to go with her daughter and son-in-law. Asked whether she ever paid any board to her son-in-law, she answered: “I didn’t pay any board; but when there was work to be done I worked and helped her out— that is what I did.” The daughter was killed in an automobile accident, M!ay 10th, 1927, and thereafter, down to the time of the trial, the son-in-law and plaintiff continued to reside in the same house, the plaintiff doing the cooking and all the housework except the washing.

In addition to this, for several months each year after the daughter’s death the plaintiff every week during the winter months rendered large quantities of lard for the defendant, who conducted a grocery store and meat market. She also washed and ironed aprons for use in the store and market. There is no doubt from the evidence appearing in the record that this woman was as much interested in the defendant’s welfare as if he had been her own son; that she performed services for him that would have been very costly if he had hired strangers to do the work. In addition to the cooking and housekeeping, she made herself more or less of a drudge to help him along.

But we cannot get any other impression from the record than that, continuing to live together as they did, without any other under ³²⁷ standing than is usually found in the family relation, there was no expectation on the part of the plaintiff that she was to be paid, and none on the part of the defendant that he was expected to pay. It took them nearly three years to find that an arrangement which existed for many years when the daughter' lived would not work indefinitely when she was gone. The evidence in the case as to all items, except those for money loaned and for the share in her daughter’s estate, brings this case within the principle of the ease of Krug v. Mills, 159 Md. 670 , at the present term of this court, in which the authorities are so exhaustively reviewed by Judge Digges that a rehearsal of them here would only amount, to unnecessary repetition. At the conclusion of the case the court granted two prayers at the instance of the defendant, designated second and third prayers.

The second instructed the jury that the plaintiff had offered no legally sufficient evidence entitling her to recover “Tor services rendered as housekeeper, for use of plaintiff’s furniture, for amounts claimed for services for rendering lard, for laundering aprons and coats, for use of plaintiff’s linen, for use of plaintiff’s furniture derived from the estate of Katie M.