Old Ladies Home Assn. v. Hall

52 So. 2d 650, 212 Miss. 67, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 429
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 24, 1951
Docket38003
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 52 So. 2d 650 (Old Ladies Home Assn. v. Hall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Old Ladies Home Assn. v. Hall, 52 So. 2d 650, 212 Miss. 67, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 429 (Mich. 1951).

Opinion

*72 Ethridge, C.

The interpretation of a contract to devise real property in return for personal services and expenditures is here involved. Also these questions arise: Whether the bill of complaint charged a positive and unconditional re *73 pudiation by the promisor; and if so, whether the anticipatory repudiation of such contract by the promisor, after performance had begun, started the statute of limitations running, or, where the promisee elected to consider the contract still alive and waited'until the promisor’s death, whether the limitation period began running at that time.

Appellee, A. D. Hall, filed his bill of complaint in the Chancery Court of Webster County, Mississippi, against appellants, Old Ladies Home Association, Mississippi Baptist Orphanage, and C. P. Fortner, executor of the estate of Mrs. Susie Jarman Douglas, deceased. Also made defendants were certain legatees and devisees of Mrs. Douglas, but these parties have taken no appeal. This appeal is from an order of the chancery court overruling special and general demurrers of appellants to the complaint. For that reason, the following is a summary of the allegations of the bill of complaint.

Prior to October 7,1938, Mrs. Susie Jarman Douglas, an elderly widow in her late seventies, approached complainant with the proposition that he, his wife and child, move into her home to live with her until' her death, and furnish her room and board, maintain the premises, pay taxes, etc., and that in return for such services, she would devise to complainant her residence and the lots appurtenant to it. On October 5, 1938, complainant and his family moved into the home of Mrs. Douglas in Eupora, in Webster County, and on October 7 complainant and Mrs. Douglas executed a written contract to carry out this agreement. The contract was prepared by Mrs. Douglas’ attorney, and was made an exhibit to the bill. The homestead property consisted of four lots in Eupora, but subsequent to the contract Mrs. Douglas sold one lot and part of another to Phillips, and complainant makes no claim to that.

Complainant charged that, in fulfillment of the contract, he and his family lived in Mrs. Douglas’ residence, that he paid taxes on it and repaired it from time to time, and furnished her and her foster daughter with suitable and *74 acceptable board and food, heat and lights and other comforts and necessities, until Thanksgiving Day of November, 1943, at which time Mrs. Douglas became enraged about complainant’s failure to have butter on the table, and ordered complainant and his family to get out of. the house. It was averred that Mrs. Douglas at all times kept two loaded pistols and a dagger in her home, and threatened physical violence to complainant’s infant son and that complainant feared for the safety of himself and his family. Complainant told her that he wanted to remain in the home and carry out his part of the contract, as he had previously done, and as he thereafter remained ready, willing and able to do, but Mrs. Douglas drove them from her home and refused complainant’s services. Complainant averred that he had performed all of his obligations under the contract, including the furnishing of good and acceptable board and room, making repairs, paying of taxes, kind treatment of Mrs. Douglas, transporting her in complainant’s car for the purpose of seeing her relatives and the tenants on her farms, waiting on her during illness, and caring for her in numerous other respects. The bill stated that butter became scarce in Eupora during World War II, and that for several days prior to Thanksgiving Day of 1943, complainant was unable to procure butter for the table.

The complaint then charged that on December 30, 1948, Mrs. Douglas executed a will which attempted to revoke her contract with complainant to devise the stated property to him, and that complainant was unaware of the will and its contents until after her death in 1950, when it was probated in common form in May, 1950. The complaint stated that the failure of Mrs. Douglas to devise the property to complainant was in violaion of her contract with him and “that he had never in any manner been informed that the testatrix, by the will, or otherwise, had attempted to void her contract to devise said property to him during her lifetime, she having informed a neighbor of her obligation to him under said contract after *75 he and his family were forced by her to remove from the home . . .” When complainant moved into Mrs. Douglas’ home in 1938, and until the time she drove him away in November, 1943, he was employed as a vocational agricultural teacher in the Eupora Special Consolidated School District, and as such he was entitled to a rent-free home. Complainant gave up this rent-free home in reliance upon his contract with Mrs. Douglas.

The will of Mrs. Douglas recited in part as follows: “Mr. A. D. Hall and his wife, Mrs. Fannie Hall, having removed from my house, in the Town of Eupora, and having ceased to- carry into effect and operation their written contract between them and me, I am not under any obligation to them, and for the reason that they have removed from my home and ceased to perform their contract with me, I have made no provision in this will for them, the written contract between them and me having been terminated by their removal from my home. ’ ’

Under that will, appellants, Old Ladies Home Association and Mississippi Baptist Orphanage, would- receive the homestead property under the residuary clause.

The bill of complaint therefore prayed that appellant Fortner, the executor, should be required to specifically perform the contract of October 7, 1938. In the event relief under the contract is denied, complainant prayed in the alternative in quantum meruit for the reasonable value of his services and expenditures for Mrs. Douglas, and for damages for breach of contract in the amount of $10,000.00.

The contract between Mrs. Douglas and appellee, dated October 7, 1938, was made an exhibit to the bill. The parties to it were Mrs. Douglas and appellee. In two “whereas” clauses it recited that Mrs. Douglas was the owner of a certain home in Eupora and desired “to be free of the burden of housekeeping and maintaining said home and incurring the expenses incident thereto for herself and her daughter, Mary Douglas, ’ ’ and that appellee had agreed to bear all expenses of maintaining the *76 home, furnishing to Mrs. Douglas and her daughter, Mary, “suitable and acceptable board and food”, and other comforts and necessities, to pay taxes and keep up the property during the lifetime of Mrs. Douglas, and that appellee and his wife were to treat her as a mother and she to treat appellee and his wife as a son and daughter. The contract then provides:

“Therefore in consideration of the premises the said Mrs. Susie Jarmon Douglas agrees to devise by a last will and testament said property , to the said A. D. Hall, and in event the said A. D. Hall does not survive her then to his wife Fannie O. Hall;
“It is further agreed and understood however that the said Mary Douglas, after the death of the said Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
52 So. 2d 650, 212 Miss. 67, 1951 Miss. LEXIS 429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/old-ladies-home-assn-v-hall-miss-1951.