Gruetzmacher v. Hainey

373 S.W.2d 45, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 610
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 9, 1963
DocketNo. 49855
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 373 S.W.2d 45 (Gruetzmacher v. Hainey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gruetzmacher v. Hainey, 373 S.W.2d 45, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 610 (Mo. 1963).

Opinion

WELBORN, Commissioner.

This is an action to set aside a deed for undue influence, forgery and lack of mental capacity of the grantor. The trial court found that the grantor lacked “sufficient physical or mental capacity” to execute the deed and ordered it set aside. This appeal is from that judgment. Because title to real estate is involved, we have jurisdiction.

Mabelle Elizabeth Gruetzmacher and her husband, Gustav, owned, as tenants by the entirety, property at 8239 Glen Echo Drive in St. Louis County. They lived in a two-story house built by them at that location in 1938. They had one child, Wilbur, the respondent here. In 1941, Mr. Gruetz-macher died. In 1945, his widow married Charles Hainey, the appellant here, and they continued to live at the Glen Echo house.

In January, 1960, Mrs. Hainey, who had previously been a healthy, active person, became ill. In March, 1960, she entered Jewish Hospital in St. Louis because of jaundice. On March 18, 1960, an exploratory operation was performed and cancer of the liver with metastasis, or spreading, discovered. The disease was in such an advanced stage that no treatment, surgical or otherwise, was undertaken. Mrs. Hainey was not informed of her condition.

While in the hospital, Mrs. Hainey, on March 26, executed a will. She devised the Glen Echo property to Wilbur, if living, and, if not, to his wife, Ethel. Specified personal property was also bequeathed to Wilbur. A bequest of $500 was made to Mrs. Hainey’s mother. The remainder of her estate was to go to her husband, if living, otherwise to Wilbur, who was named executor.

On April 1, 1960, Mrs. Hainey returned home from the hospital. She remained there until her death on June 3, 1960. The deed in question was executed on May 27, 1960. By it Mrs. Hainey transferred the Glen Echo property to herself and her husband, Charles, as tenants by the entirety. The deed was recorded on the date of its execution. By this action Wilbur sought to have the deed set aside and title decreed in him under the March 26, 1960 will of Mrs. Hainey, which had been admitted to probate, subject to respondent’s rights as executor under the will.

As for the evidence bearing on the issue of the mental capacity (to which we confine our review inasmuch as if that element is lacking, the physical capacity of the grantor would be immaterial), there is not the usually found conflict in the testimony of the two parties to the litigation. The difference relates largely to the effect and weight of the testimony. Respondent’s principal witnesses were his wife, Ethel, and Dr. Solon Harris, M.D., who attended Mrs. Hainey before and after she entered the hospital. According to Ethel, she and her husband had, prior to the hospitalization of Mrs. Hainey, gotten along well with the Haineys. Ethel and respondent were married in 1935 and went to live with the Gruetzmachers at that time. They moved with them to the Glen Echo residence in 1938 and continued to live there until 1945, when, at about the time Mrs. Gruetzmacher married the appellant, they purchased a house of their own. Thereafter, they and the Haineys visited regularly. According to Ethel, she and her husband would have dinner in the Hainey home at least once a week.

After the operation and while Mrs. Hainey was still in the hospital, an encounter took place at the hospital between Mr. Hainey and the Gruetzmachers in which Hainey, according to Ethel, stated: “All you are coming in here for is her property. I am her husband. Everything she has is mine. When she married me she forsook the family and nobody knows what she has. And I am furious with Doctor Gruenfeld for telling her.” After this incident, Ethel told Mrs. Hainey that Doctor Gruenfeld, the surgeon who had performed the operation, had suggested that Mrs. Hainey should, “in view of this friction,” have a will. According to Ethel, Mrs. Hainey said that she had been wanting to malee a will for some [47]*47time, but she “thought Charlie would have to sign also.” Notes of Mrs. Hainey’s wishes were made by Ethel, who was a secretary to an attorney. She got in touch with an attorney not connected with the firm by which she was employed, who prepared the will as described above and brought it to the hospital where it was executed.

After Mrs. Hainey returned home on April 1, respondent and his wife visited her about every other night for the first two weeks. During that time, Mrs. Hainey was up and around and went to the table for her meals. Gradually, however, her condition became worse. She began, according to Ethel, “to refuse food or, if she did eat, she couldn’t keep it down. And she became more yellow and thinner and finally didn’t want to get up at all. She just lay in bed all the time.” When she reached that stage, respondent and his wife visited her every night.

Around the middle of May, Wilbur and Ethel were visiting Mrs. Hainey and appellant asked whether or not they had Mrs. Hainey’s bank book. Mrs. Hainey had, prior to entering the hospital, given Wilbur a passbook for a savings account in the joint names of Mrs. Hainey and Wilbur. After Mr. Hainey’s inquiry, Mrs. Hainey told Wilbur to tell her husband that she had given her son the passbook some time prior to entering the hospital. Ethel testified that Mrs. Hainey said: “He has been fighting for a bank book and title for three days.” The testimony indicated that the title referred to related to the Glen Echo property. On the second or third subsequent visit, Wilbur, in response to appellant’s continued requests, gave him the passbook. Following Mrs. Hainey’s death, respondent realized approximately $4,300 from the account.

Ethel described Mrs. Hainey’s mental and physical condition at the time of this incident as follows:

“Sometimes she would not even recognize us. If she would, she would put up her hand in recognition and close her eyes and lie there in the bed. Sometimes we would ask her something and she would ramble on incoherently and then again maybe she would say a few words we could understand. * *
“When I asked her what she wanted the bank book for she would start off rambling, ‘We are out of money. I have to use my own money.’ Then repeat that over and over again. Then I couldn’t get any more out of her.”

Respondent and his wife last saw Mrs. Hainey on May 23. At that time, by Ethel’s testimony, appellant shouted at them about Mrs. Hainey’s property, saying: “I’ve been talking to people and the house is mine.” In view of the appellant’s attitude, the Gruetzmachers did not return and kept in touch with Mrs. Hainey’s condition through the Visiting Nurses Association. Mrs Gruetzmacher described Mrs. Hainey’s condition, when she last saw her on May 23 and for the two or three preceding nights, as follows: “She just lay there in a coma, would not even speak or say anything.” Ethel and Wilbur could not carry on a conversation with her. Mrs. Hainey did not recognize them toward the last. “I would ask her, ‘You want a drink of water?’ Maybe she would nod her head and after bringing it she would shake her head she didn’t.” She ate nothing. Ethel and her husband brought liquids that she could sip through a straw. She was unable to hold the straw herself. The last words Ethel heard Mrs. Hainey say were: “I am in agony.”

On cross-examination, respondent’s wife acknowledged that, after the marriage of the appellant and Mrs. Gruetzmacher, appellant had worked for several years until he retired and thereafter he received social security benefits. Except for $7,000 in insurance which Mrs. Hainey received on the death of her husband, the appellant had provided for Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
373 S.W.2d 45, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gruetzmacher-v-hainey-mo-1963.