Riggle v. McCann

Markell, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a decree declaring a deed, dated January 7,1947, from plaintiff (husband and wife) to defendants (husband and wife) to be null and void and the property No. 2413 Maryland Avenue to be the sole and absolute property of plaintiffs. The testimony was taken in open court. We have not the benefit of an opinion of the lower court, but it is evident that on the material questions of fact, where the testimony is conflicting, the judge in general, but not in all respects, accepted plaintiffs’ version and rejected defendants’.

We shall not review the testimony in detail but shall state as facts some, at least, of our conclusions. The testimony of all the parties is to some extent exaggerated and self-contradictory, but after all discounts there is irreconcilable conflict. Plaintiffs were married in 1898. They have no children.

In January, 1947, he was about seventy-two, she about sixty-six. His education had not gone beyond the third grade. He could read and write, but owing to deafness could hear little. He had been a carpenter and cabinet-maker.

In 1930, when the man he worked for died, he retired. Since then he has not worked, except on odd jobs at home or outside. She never went to school, could not read or write, but had acquired the dangerous faculty of signing her name, with difficulty, without being able to read what she signed. Since he retired she had supported them both, with the help of what he made, by renting rooms.

In 1942 they ³²² bought as tenants by the entireties, for $4,500, the Maryland Avenue house, where they live, in fee. She says he contributed $2,000 “that he had worked [for] up at the hardware store.” She rented another house in the same block (No. 2435), and rented out rooms in both houses. She received from “roomers” about $27 a week from their own house, and $35 from the other one. They had $7,000 on deposit, in the names of both, with a savings bank and a building association.

In December, 1946 she also kept at the house $2,000 in cash, which she had saved from rents. One of her roomers, who did not testify, helped her, gratuitously, with rent receipts, deposits and otherwise. She had had pneumonia some time before, and in 1946 was suffering from neuritis and arthritis, and acutely from glaucoma, and had in prospect an operation for removal of her left eye, which eventually was performed at the Wilmer Institute in the summer of 1947. Mr. Riggle is a nephew of Mrs. McCann.

He had been married about 1936. He had been overseas, in the service, and returned in January, 1946. While he was away his wife had worked for Bendix near plaintiffs’ house. Since his return he has been working for General Electric, and is making $50 a week.

With the aid of a G. I. loan defendants are buying a $19,000 house, into which they have put about $6,000 from the sale of another house. They also own a 1949 Nash, not yet fully paid for. Since his return they, and before his return his wife, had been more or less attentive (more, they say, less, plaintiffs say,) to Mrs. McCann in visiting her and doing things for her and for the house. Plaintiffs say they did little and usually were paid for jobs they did, e. g., painting; defendants say they did much without compensation.

Mrs. Riggle details prolonged housework and irksome personal attention during illness of Mrs. McCann. Other witnesses say Mrs. McCann employed a colored woman to come in and do cleaning. Mrs. Riggle, when asked when the first conversation about the Maryland Avenue house took place, said, ³²³ “That started way back almost from the beginning”, i. e., presumably, from Mr. Riggle’s return in January, 1946. Mr. Riggle says, “my aunt was asking us for quite a while if we wanted the property, and it went on almost, well, 1 will say at least eight months to a year before we made up our mind, because we did not want to do anything we may be sorry for later, so she kept after us until finally she asked my wife * * * to get a lawyer, and my wife asked my aunt if she had one.” Mrs. McCann mentioned a lawyer (not her present counsel), whom she had found unsatisfactory and did not want.

Mrs. Riggle consulted her mother and at her suggestion telephoned Mr. Thomas E. Mason and asked him to come to Mrs. McCann’s house. Mr. Riggle, when asked by the court whether his aunt or uncle told him there was any limitation on their ownership, or they were to hold it for any particular purpose, said, “The only reason my aunt said was to take care of my uncle after she passed away. We volunteered to that, and it still holds good as far as I am concerned.” On December 20, 1946, about two days after Mrs. Riggle had telephoned him, Mr. Mason went by appointment to Mrs. McCann’s house and talked with Mrs. McCann and Mrs. Riggle. He stayed about half an hour.

He had never met any of the parties. He understood he went there to represent Mrs. McCann. Mrs. McCann wanted to give this Maryland Avenue property to the Riggles. “She wanted to make a gift of it. I talked to her.

Frankly, I tried to talk her out of it. She apparently was expecting to go to the hospital for this operation, and she wanted to get this thing settled before she went, and she wanted to turn this property over to these young folks. * * * the impression I received was she was thinking maybe she would not come back. * * * I told her it was not necessary for her to deed that property to those young people, that she could have the property — in other words, I told her about a life tenancy so she and her husband could have the property as long as they lived, and the young people have it — in ³²⁴ other words, a life tenancy and a remainder. She did not want that. I discussed with her — I told her about a deed with powers * * * in other words, she could deed the property to some, third person and [it could] be deeded back to her with powers which, if she executed them, it would be all right, and if she did not, * * * after her death it would go to them.

She did not want that. She wanted to give the property to them. She wanted to make an outright gift of it.” When he was there he got the deed from Mrs. McCann, who had it in the house, so that he could go to his office and draw the new deed. Mr. Mason drew the deed and on January 7, 1947 went with a notary, his stenographer, to the house to have it executed.

When they arrived Mrs. McCann and Mr. and Mrs. Riggle were there. Mrs. Riggle went out to get Mr. McCann and came back with him. Mr. Mason told them he had brought the papers they had asked him to bring, and had brought a notary with him for the purpose of executing them. Then he took the deed and “read it to them loudly so that they could understand it”, and after he read it to them he asked them if they did understand it.

Mrs. McCann said, Yes. “I handed it to Mr. McCann, and he took it and read it. * * * I realized — here are some people I have never seen before except the one time I was up there, and I realized they were deeding away this property, and I asked them if they understood what they were doing. I said, ‘Do you know you are giving this property away, and that after — this is a deed, an absolute deed, and after you sign it and it is recorded, why the property is no longer yours.’ * * * I won’t say whether they said, yes, or whether they nodded their heads, but they answered in the affirmative in some way.” Mr. and Mrs. McCann signed the deed and the notary certified their acknowledgment. “We were there quite a while.” On the second visit — nothing was said the first time — his recollection is that after the papers were signed Mrs. McCann asked Mrs. Riggle “to promise her that she would take care ³²⁵ of Mr. McCann in the event that anything happened to her, and they said they would, and I said, ‘If you have any doubt about it we will write a letter setting that forth’; and Mrs. McCann said that that would not be necessary, that if she did not have confidence in these people she would not be doing this.” Mr. Mason understood he “went there to represent Mrs. McCann”. While he was there, Mrs. Riggle, after asking the amount of his fee, handed him $35, “which covered two visits, drawing the papers, and included the cost of recording the deed.” Mrs. Riggle says she got the $35 for this purpose from Mrs. McCann; Mrs. McCann denies this. On January 9, 1947 Mr. Mason wrote Mrs. Riggle, enclosing a receipt for the $35 and also enclosing the record office receipt for the deed.

Mr. Riggle says that on January 7, 1947 Mr. Mason “explained the whole thing to them [Mr. and Mrs. McCann]. For a while I thought Mr. Mason was against me instead of for me because he did try to talk my aunt out of it. That, might not sound right but that is the truth. * * * He asked them the different ways, the life tenancy, or just a will, or something like that, and he asked them if they knew what they were doing, and they said, ‘yes, sir.’ ” Mr. Mason, when asked by the court whether he did not represent Mr. McCann, as well as Mrs. McCann, said, “That I leave up to the court. * * * It was not my understanding it was Mr. McCann’s property. It was my understanding he was just there as a husband, that the property had really belonged to Mrs. McCann, that she had bought it and her money was in it, and he was just doing what she told him. * * * That was the impression I received.

She was the one that seemed to be — she was wearing the pants. She was the dominating figure.” Mr. McCann says, when he came into the room on January 7, 1947, his wife said she had a paper she wanted him to sign for her “so you will have a home and nothing to worry about after I am dead and gone” ; that on account of his wife’s condition he would have done ³²⁶ anything; that he was told the paper was “to save our home to keep when Aunt Mollie died, no one could sue us and take the home away from us.” The reason his wife gave for having him sign the deed was that if he was going to be sued no one could take the property away from him. He meant “the condition my wife was in when they came over there and started to work on her, they told her she was