Estate of Hutchinson v. Lehr

191 N.E.2d 46, 135 Ind. App. 137, 1963 Ind. App. LEXIS 230
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 13, 1963
DocketNo. 19,759
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 191 N.E.2d 46 (Estate of Hutchinson v. Lehr) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Hutchinson v. Lehr, 191 N.E.2d 46, 135 Ind. App. 137, 1963 Ind. App. LEXIS 230 (Ind. Ct. App. 1963).

Opinion

Kelley, J.

— Appellee filed claim for services rendered against the appellant administrator W/W/A of the named appellant estate. The claim was duly disallowed and trial thereof was to the court, without intervention of a jury. Finding for appellee in sum of $23,000.00 and consistent judgment was rendered. The sole error here assigned is the overruling of appellant’s motion for a new trial on the specified grounds that the amount of recovery is too large, that the decision of the court is not sustained by sufficient evidence and is contrary to law, and that the court erred in overruling appellant’s objection to certain hypothetical questions put to witnesses called by appellee and in admitting into evidence the answers thereto.

[139]*139Appellant has grouped and supported by one argument said specifications of the new trial motion that the decision is not sustained by sufficient evidence and that the same is contrary to law. These specifications are predicated wholly upon the proposal that the court erred in “applying the law to the facts presented in evidence.” This proposal, in turn, finds its roots in appellant’s contention that, as appellant says, “in reviewing the record as a whole, there is every reasonable inference to support the belief that the relationship between the decedent and the claimant was one of convenience and without the benefit of clergy.”

The difficulty we experience with appellant’s said contention is that we are not referred by appellant’s brief to the evidence which establishes that the relationship of appellee and the decedent was “one of convenience and without benefit of clergy.” There is no contention by either party that appellee was a member of decedent’s family. But appellant takes the position that appellee and decedent lived “in a family relationship” and that where “one . . . lives with a family” or “where there is an illegal or illicit relationship between the parties” a recovery cannot be had because “a promise will not be implied on the part of either to pay for services rendered.”

It is apparent, of course, that the logical validity of the said various deductions advanced by appellant must rest upon a pertinent premise uncontrovertably established by uncontradicted evidence of probative value warranting only one inference leading inescapably to the stated premise. To meet this requirement appellant tenders us only its own statements and conclusions as to what it deems the evidence to be and to establish, and the legal effect thereof, all without any citation or reference to any part of the record or brief where [140]*140the same may be found. As illustrative, appellant states (without citation to the record): that appellee performed various household duties, errands, and nursing duties for decedent for 19 years; that at the time she began she was 44 years of age and decedent was 64 years of age; that “there was testimony” with reference to accountings between decedent and appellee; that decedent paid appellee $300 immediately prior to his demise; that appellee “testified” with reference to grocery purchases from time to time for decedent; that appellee’s “Exhibit 10” “indicates” that in one week she purchased six quarts of milk, three loaves of bread, 36 eggs and 132 oranges.

Appellant continues: “no person would render services . . . over a period of 19 years without being compensated unless there was no expectation of payment”; “such duties were rendered in exchange for his love, affection and understanding and the stipends given to her from time to time”; “there was evidence that the decedent was the putative father of the son” of appellee; that “there is more than a mere inference to be obtained from reading the record as a whole that decedent was indeed the father”; that appellee said she kept accounts of items purchased for decedent “but the only thing introduced ... in her behalf is a quite dubious list” of items “in her own handwriting”; that “one must bear in mind that at the time of the purchase” of said items appellee’s “unemployed son, his wife and children were living with” the appellee; “This is the same son who on one occasion indicated that the decedent doctor was his father”; that the appellee “never made any demand upon decedent for compensation, and kept no books of sums allegedly due her.”

[141]*141[140]*140The foregoing, given in appellant’s brief without any reference to the record or where it may be found and [141]*141without any statement or showing that the evidence was without conflict, comprises the whole and all that appellant submits in its brief concerning the relationship which appellant asserts existed between decedent and appellee as “convenient and without benefit of clergy.” It should suffice to say, without more, that such assumptions and conclusions would not authorize us to hold, as against the finding of the trial court, that appellee lived in an illicit or immoral relationship with decedent and that, consequently, the court erroneously applied the law “to the facts presented in evidence.”

Appellant further says that “As shown by the facts already stated (being the same statements and factual conclusions we have already referred to) . . . and other facts shown in the record, it is obvious that” appellee “did not expect to be compensated for the services she says she rendered, but only conceived the idea of filing a claim subsequent to the demise of decedent.” The facts “already stated” by appellant are wholly insufficient to lead to appellant’s expressed conclusion that appellee “did not expect to be compensated” for her services. Appellant’s stated conclusion as to what it deems the evidence to establish is apparently not the same conclusion arrived at by the court upon the evidence. Appellant does not contend or assert that the evidence was without dispute or that the permissible reasonable inferences afforded by the evidence were non-conflicting and lead to the one sole conclusion stated by appellant. We are not apprised by appellant of what “other facts shown in the record” we are to search for as sustaining appellant’s aforestated conclusion.

To the end that any asserted injustice may not prevail, we have carefully read and considered the evidence as reported in appellant’s condensed recital thereof, to[142]*142gether with the additional evidence pointed out by appellee. There appears ample evidence to sustain the finding by the trial court that there was, on the one hand, an intention by decedent to pay and, on the other hand, that there was an expectation by appellee to receive compensation for her service. The extent of the services performed by appellee, and the value thereof, were questions for the trial court, as was, also, the question of whether the services were rendered gratuitously or under circumstances which would preclude recovery by appellee. Richmire, Administrator v. Deardurff (1927), 86 Ind. App. 31, 33, 155 N. E. 720, p. 721.

It appears, and seems not to be denied, that appellee performed some of the services for which she seeks compensation. There is evidence that decedent said of appellee:

“What a wonderful person, I don’t know what I would do without her.”;

that he did not know how he could get along without her services as his income was small and he was going to give her his property and would leave her his entire estate after his death; that decedent told appellee:

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Related

Estate of Pendell v. Wolfinger
236 N.E.2d 842 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1968)
Bush v. Walters
193 N.E.2d 140 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1963)

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Bluebook (online)
191 N.E.2d 46, 135 Ind. App. 137, 1963 Ind. App. LEXIS 230, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-hutchinson-v-lehr-indctapp-1963.