Tate v. Murphy

1949 OK 228, 217 P.2d 177, 202 Okla. 671, 18 A.L.R. 2d 892, 1949 Okla. LEXIS 508
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 18, 1949
DocketNo. 33275
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 1949 OK 228 (Tate v. Murphy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tate v. Murphy, 1949 OK 228, 217 P.2d 177, 202 Okla. 671, 18 A.L.R. 2d 892, 1949 Okla. LEXIS 508 (Okla. 1949).

Opinion

HALLEY, J.

This action was commenced by Sinclair Murphy, as administrator of the estate of Maggie Ever-hart, deceased, against Ada Tate and others, to recover certain lands located in McClain county, with rents therefrom, and certain moneys and interest thereon, all of which was conveyed and transferred to Ada Tate by Maggie Everhart during her lifetime. Damages for clouding title were alleged, but this claim was abandoned. The defendants, other than Ada Tate, were disposed of by the trial court, and are not parties to this appeal by Ada Tate from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff. We shall refer to the parties as they appeared in the trial court, or by name.

Plaintiff alleged as grounds for recovery that Maggie Everhart was mentally incompetent to make the transfers complained of; that her deed to Ada Tate was a forgery and never in fact delivered; that the transfers were the result of undue influence and fraud; that the consideration therefor was inadequate; and that there was a failure of consideration and breach of contract by Ada Tate in her failure to care and provide for Maggie Everhart during the remainder of her life.

Defendant answered by general denial, and that on December 9, 1942, Maggie Everhart had voluntarily executed and delivered to Ada Tate a deed [673]*673conveying the lands in question, and transferred to Ada Tate certain money, all in consideration of an agreement by Ada Tate to furnish a home for and care and provide for Maggie Ever-hart during the remainder of her life; that Maggie Everhart was competent to make such transfers, and that Ada Tate had fully performed such agreement from the date of the transfers to her in December, 1942, until in January, 1944, when Maggie Everhart had become very ill, both physically and mentally, and it had become necessary to have her committed to the State Hospital for the Insane at Las Vegas, New Mexico, where she died on January 25, 1944.

Plaintiff replied that if such contract was made, it was unfair, unreasonable and unconscionable, and part of a plan by Ada Tate to defraud Maggie Everhart of her property without an adequate consideration, and that there had been a failure of consideration and breach of contract when, in January, 1944, Ada Tate had caused Maggie Everhart to be committed to the state institution as an indigent person.

Due to the various issues involved, we deem it proper to give a summary of the well-established facts relative to the lives, relationship and actions of Maggie Everhart, grantor in the transfers sought to be canceled, and Ada Tate, the grantee.

On December 9, 1942, when Maggie Everhart transferred her property to Ada Tate, the exact age of Maggie Everhart was not known, but she was over 70 years of age. For fifteen to twenty years she had suffered from kidney and bladder trouble, requiring medical care and opiates to relieve her suffering. She and her husband had come to the Indian Territory prior to statehood, and as farmers had acquired, prior to his death in 1931, a substantial amount of property. Mr. Everhart left a will, giving all of his property to his wife and making her executrix without bond. She qualified and administered the estate. Thereafter, she managed her property and business affairs with the advice of her banker and attorney. She rented her farms, collected the rents, and kept a bank account at the town of Rosedale until that bank was liquidated in 1935, when she transferred her banking business to Purcell. She executed oil and gas leases, and in 1939 she sold one farm. She lived mostly in her home in Rosedale, and had various people there with her.

Having no children of their own, the Everharts generously became the foster-parents of several children of others. About 1900, Ada Tate, a girl eight or nine years of age, whose deceased father was a half-brother of Mrs. Ever-hart, came to live with the Everharts as a member of the family. She performed both household and farm work until, about 1908, when she married. She and her husband homesteaded land in Curry county, New Mexico, about eleven miles from Clovis. Ada Tate became the mother of eleven' children, and at the death of her husband in 1935, they had acquired about one thousand acres of land, and after the death of her husband Ada Tate erected a modern home on the land and continued to manage the lands left by her husband. Maggie Everhart and her husband visited Ada Tate in New Mex-ica at least once, and she visited the Everharts in Oklahoma four or five times from 1908 to 1942. Maggie Ever-hart visited Ada Tate in New Mexico in 1937, 1938, and 1939. They carried on an irregular correspondence, none of which appears in the record, and there is no evidence that there were any disagreements between them.

In August, 1942, Ada Tate visited Mrs. Everhart at her home in Rose-dale, Okla., where she had lived most of the time since the death of her husband. Roma Gowan, a witness for the plaintiff, had lived with the Ever-harts from the age of two years until she married, and she and her husband had lived with Mrs. Everhart at different times, the last being in 1942, when the four small children of Mrs. [674]*674Gowan appeared to have annoyed Mrs. Everhart, and she had them vacate before the visit of Mrs. Tate. At that time, Mrs. Everhart was living alone, and some of her friends and neighbors had advised her she should not live alone in the winter, since she had sick spells when she was not able tq do her work. She had continued to transact her business affairs. She paid her doctor and hospital bills, her grocery bills, gas bills, insurance premiums, and taxes, all by check. She collected her rents and deposited them in the bank, and placed over a thousand dollars on time deposit. She had several wills prepared, including a codicil on account of the death of a legatee, and in one will her deceased sister was named as a legatee.

She advised some of her neighbors after Ada Tate had visted her in August, 1942, that she was going to New Mexico to live with Ada Tate. The latter part of November, 1942, she reached a neighbor and friend who had a pick-up truck, and asked him to take her to the depot in Purcell, telling him that she was going to the home of Ada Tate to live. This friend and his sister-in-law took Mrs. Everhart to the depot in Purcell and she took the train alone for Clovis, New Mexico. Upon arriving there the next day she found the phone of Ada Tate out of order, but reached her through the phone of a neighbor. Mrs. Tate took her to her home and gave her a comfortable room near the bath, and there Mrs. Everhart lived until January 14, 1944, when she was committed to the State Hospital for the Insane at Las Vegas, where she died on January 25, 1944. Mrs. Tate had undertaken to secure a nurse, but none was available; she undertook to secure hospital service at Clovis, but none was available for such a case; and she was advised by the doctor in attendance, and by the doctor who advised her at the hearing, that Mrs. Everhart would secure better care and medical service at the Las Vegas institution. It is not questioned that Mrs. Tate gave Mrs. Everhart a good home and cared for her properly until she was adjudged insane.

On December 9, 1942, some ten days after Mrs. Everhart arrived in New Mexico, she went with Ada Tate and her daughter-in-law to Clovis. They went first to the office of a doctor, and inquired of him about an attorney, and were referred to the assistant district attorney, whose office was upstairs. Mrs. Tate went up to the office and had a deed prepared conveying the lands of Mrs. Everhart to Ada Tate. The attorney went out to the car and, with Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
1949 OK 228, 217 P.2d 177, 202 Okla. 671, 18 A.L.R. 2d 892, 1949 Okla. LEXIS 508, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tate-v-murphy-okla-1949.