Pearre v. Smith

⁵³³ Schmucker, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appeal in this case is from a judgment of the Circuit Court for Howard County in favor of the appellee against the appellant as executor of the estate of George E. Leaeh. The suit was brought on the common counts in assumpsit to recover the value of services alleged to have been rendered to the defendant’s testator and his family in his lifetime. The defense was made under the general issue pleas.

The trial resulted in a judgment for $800 in favor of the plaintiff, from which the appeal was taken. It appears from the evidence on behalf of the plaintiff— the defendant offered none — that the services sued for consisted of aiding the testator’s sisters, during more than twenty years prior to his death, in the performance of current domestic labor in the household composed of him and them. The evidence does not tend to show that the services were Tendered in pursuance of an express or implied contract, or that there was a design at the time of their rendition to charge for them or an expectation on the part of the recipients to pay for them, or that any claim for payment was asserted, or demand therefor made upon the testator during his lifetime. The evidence on the contrary shows that the services in question were voluntarily and cheerfully rendered by the appellee, who was an inmate of the household without being required to pay either board or lodging.

It further shows that when she was, on several occasions, presented with sums of money by different members of the family in the absence of a demand therefor on her part, she accepted them without, so far as the record shows, suggesting the existence in her favor of a right to compensation. We have definitely determined in a series of cases that services performed under such circumstances by a member of the family are not sufficient to support a claim against a decedent’s estate for compensation. Bantz v. Bantz, 52 Md. 686 ; Bixler v. Sellman, 77 Md. 496 , Gill v. Staylor, 93 Md. 453 ; Duckworth v. Duckworth, 98 Md. 100 . ⁵³⁴ In 2 Page on Contracts, page 1183, sec. 778 (citing Bixler v. Sellman, supra), it is said: “Persons who live together as members of the same family and render personal services each to the other generally do so from motives of affection and not because of the expectation of a financial reward therefor. Accordingly, the mere rendition of personal services between persons so situated, does not establish a liability on the part of the person receiving such sendees to make com.pensation to the person rendering them, even though the services may be performed at the express request of the person receiving the benefit thereof, or may be voluntarily accepted by him.” In our view although the appellee was not a blood relation of the decedent and his sister, she should, upon the undisputed evidence in the case be regarded as having been a member of his family.

The word “family” is often used in a restricted sense to describe a group of persons connected by ties of kindred, such as parents and children, but it has a variety of meanings according to the connection in which it is used, and it should be so construed in each case as to give it the significance appropriate to its use. 19 Cyc. 450; 12 A. & E. Encycl., 866; Sheehy v. Scott, 4 L. R. A. N. S. 365; Downes v. Long, 79 Md. 385 . Webster defines it to be a collective body of persons who live in one house and under one manager, and that meaning has been approved in many cases cited in the foot note found on page 866 of Vol. 12 A. & E. Encycl., supra. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, Vol. 1, page 758, says that in common parlance the family “consists of those who live under the same roof with the pater familias” and also cites different cases as authority for the definition of the word family taken by us from Webster. The words “family” and “household” are often interchangeably used.

It appears from the evidence that the appellee was taken about the year 1869, when but eight years old, by Mr. Leach’s widowed sister Mrs. Belt, as a ward, from the Children’s Aid Society and was admitted into her family and educated and taught the trade of dress making by her. The ⁵³⁵ relation thus established between the appellee and Mrs. Belt continued until the death of the latter about seven years ago. About twenty years ago Mrs. Belt, taking the appellee with her, moved from the farm,' which she had theretofore occupied, to Lisbon in Howard County, where she and her unmarried sisters Martha and Louisa and her brother Mr. Leach, who was a bachelor, resided together as one family in a house in which he then conducted a store. Eive years thereafter Mrs. Belt built a residence at Lisbon and she and her two sisters' and her brother, who then retired from business, moved into her house and lived together there as one family until they, with the exception of Louisa Leach successively died.

During all of these years until the death of Mrs. Belt about seven years ago the appellee remained with the family thus constituted and performed the services in question by participating with Mr. Leach’s sisters in the discharge of the current domestic duties of the household. Louisa Leach, the testator’s surviving sister, and Albert Hobbs, an intimate friend of the family throughout its entire history, both testified for the appellee as plaintiff that she was' always treated as a member of the family while she resided with them. According to Louisa Leach’s testimony the appellee did such of the domestic work as she chose to, just as any member of the family. After Mrs. Belt’s death the appellee did not reside permanently with the family but paid them visits of some length from time to time during which she assisted as she had formerly done in the performance of household duties and nursing such of them as were ill.

The services thus rendered by the appellee in the long series of years covered by them were doubtless considerable and there was evidence tending to show that they were valuable and that Mr.' Leach the testator in his lifetime said to several