Wise v. Swartzwelder

Brent, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellants filed the bill in this case for the purpose of setting aside a deed from Margaret Wise to Peter Swartzwelder, dated the sixteenth of January, ÍSÍS, by which she conveyed to him a house and lot, in the City of Hagerstown. By agreement a decree pro forma, dismissing the bill, was passed by the Circuit Court for Washington County, and from that decree this appeal is taken. It is apparent from the record, that, although the value of the property involved is not large, the case has been productive of much feeling.

The testimony is unusually voluminous, and so conflicting that the learned Judges who heard the case below, reached different conclusions. We are not disposed to review the testimony at length. To do so would very greatly extend this opinion; and in contrasting the testimony of the witnesses, it would be almost impossible to avoid remarks upon it, which might he construed into reflections upon witnesses who may have testified in perfect good faith. It is also wholly needless, as the conclusions only which we have deduced from the whole proof, are to govern the decree to he passed.

We think upon the ¿ntire case as developed, that the burden of proof is on the complainants. Ho such confidential relations are found to exist between the parties to the deed as to throw that burden upon the defendants, who are the heirs-at-law of the grantee. Keeping this rule in view, we have not thought that the case is one of unusual difficulty. ²⁹⁴ In 1846 Mrs. Wise lost her husband. The only real estate, which he possessed, was this house and lot, which had been the home of himself and family.

Dying insolvent, upon a creditors’ hill the house and lot were decreed to he sold. At the sale, which was in 1851, Peter Swartzwelder, a bachelor brother of the widow, became the purchaser of the property for fourteen hundred and thirty dollars, and subsequently for the consideration of love and affection he made a conveyance of it to the sister, Mrs. Wise. Some time afterwards the house was enlarged and remodeled, and for this Peter Swartzwelder paid an additional sum of four thousand dollars. That this house and lot were regarded by the brother as the absolute property of the sister is unquestioned from the proof.

It was evidently his purpose to furnish her with a house and home, of which she could not he deprived. She lived there as owner, and he hoarded with her. The warmest and kindest affection existed between them, and thus they lived in the utmost harmony until the sister died, on the 16th of February, 1875. Mrs. Wise had no income, except what she received for the hoard of the brother, and from the rent of a room, as a lawyer’s office, after the house had been enlarged.

Other means, when required for her own comfort or the support of the house, it is fairly to he inferred, were furnished by him. Her children were not with her. Her daughter had married, and the two sons seem to have been wanderers, only occasionally communicating with her, or returning to her home when they needed money, and this was generally given them from her slender means, or by the brother. In 1874 the health of Mrs. Wise became seriously impaired, and in the fall of that year she became hopelessly sick with dropsy complicated with disease of the heart.

From about Christmas of that year to the time of her death, on the 16th of February, following, her sufferings are described by all the witnesses as being of the ²⁹⁵ most severe and intense character. One month before her death the deed in question was executed, and it is charged that at the time she was mentally incapable of making a deed. Great physical suffering oftentimes shatters and destroys the mind, but it does not necessarily produce such result. The law recognizes the fact that the mind may he competent, though the body is aged, and stricken by disease and suffering.

There is no doubt that about the time when this deed was executed, the mind of Mrs. Wise often wandered, that she sometimes fancied she saw visions which did not exist, that she failed at times to recognize persons whom she had known, and that she talked incoherently in her broken sleep or when awaking from it. But all these must have been temporary, whether resulting from opiates administered to allay pain or not, for witnesses, who are quite as competent to judge as those who testify to these hallucinations and wanderings, testify with equal credibility to her competency and unimpaired mind when they saw and conversed with her. Notably among these are two reverend gentlemen who called upon her for spiritual purposes. They, no doubt, from their