Whitridge v. Whitridge

24 A. 645, 76 Md. 54, 1892 Md. LEXIS 25
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedJune 7, 1892
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 24 A. 645 (Whitridge v. Whitridge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whitridge v. Whitridge, 24 A. 645, 76 Md. 54, 1892 Md. LEXIS 25 (Md. 1892).

Opinions

McSherry, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The object of this» proceeding is to vacate and set aside a voluntary deed executed by Miss Elizabeth Graham, now Mrs. Elizabeth Whitridge, less than six months after she had reached the age of twenty-one, and about two months prior to her marriage. The deed recites that she had attained the age of twenty-one and was desirous of settling her property in trust, and then in consideration of the premises and of one dollar conveys to her father, William H. Graham, and her cousin, [71]*71William Graham Bowdoin, all the property of every kind which she was entitled to, either in possession or by way of remainder, whether vested or contingent, under the will of her grandfather, George Brown, deceased. This property, amounting in value to about four hundred thousand ($400,000.00) dollars, had been given by the will of her grandfather to five trustees, William H. Graham, her father, being one, to be held until Miss Graham should arrive at the age of twenty-one, and thereupon the trust was to cease and the property was declared to be the ‘ ‘ absolute property of said Elizabeth.” Miss Graham was but four years old when her grandfather died, and from that time until after she attained her majority this property remained in trust in the hands of her father and the other trustees under her grandfather’s will. She attained her majority on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1876, and on the seventh of August following she executed a release to these trustees acknowledging the conveyance and transfer by them to her of all the property to which she was entitled under the will of her grandfather. On November the ninth, 1876, the deed of trust now in controversy was signed. Its provisions are intricate and complicated, though perfectly intelligible to a trained professional mind. By this deed she irrevocably parted with the possession of and the title to every dollar of this large estate. The deed declares that the net income of the property, after the payment of commissions, expenses, and taxes, shall be paid to her, not as it may accrue, but in quarterly instalments, for and during her life. The right to dispose by will of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of the settled property to whomsoever she pleased was reserved to her by the deed; and the residue was limited in trust, first, to her children upon their attaining twenty-one years of age, and to the descendants of a deceased child dying under that age; with power in her to prefer [72]*72and apportion by will amongst her issue; secondly, in the event of her dying without leaving a child or children or issue capable of taking under the terms of the remainder first created, their the residue, together with the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars if undisposed of by will, was limited in equal moieties, hut unequal estates, to her father and brother — to her father absolutely, and to her brother for life — with cross-remainders and ultimate remainders to the heirs-at-law and next-of-kin of her grandfather, George Brown, and a power was superadded to prefer and apportion amongst these heirs-at-law and next-of-kin by last will and testament. The deed contains no power of revocation and no restraint on the right of the settlor to alienate her life estate; and, whilst making provision for the appointment of new trustees to succeed those named in the first instance, gives to her no voice in their selection, and allows her no participation whatever in making or changing investments. No part of the corpus of the estate can be used by her— it is placed absolutely beyond her reach — and she is wholly powerless during her life to advance a dollar of all this property to her children or to others whom she may wish to aid, no matter how desirable or meritorious such a step might be. In a word, she has been deprived of all control over her property, and has been reduced by the deed to the position of a mere annuitant iipon her own estate. And not only is this so, but the very instrument which has produced these results, conferred a substantial benefit on her father, one of the grantees in the deed and one of the trustees by whom, under the will of George Brown, the very same property had been held and managed for the settlor from her early infancy. The benefit derived by her father was dependent, it is true, upon the contingency of his survivorship and of her death without leaving children, except as to the commissions which were unconditionally allowed. A [73]*73young girl just twenty-one years of age, entitled in her own right without a single restriction to a large fortune, by a voluntary conveyance not only stripped herself of every dollar of that fortune, but granted the half of it to her father, if he survived her and she died without issue, though he had but three months before ceased to control it as testamentary trustee, whilst not relinquishing actual dominion over it. A gift obtained where the relation of parent and child exists, and under such circumstances as these, is prima facie void, and the burden is on the donee to establish to the full satisfaction of the Court that it was the free, voluntary, unbiased act of the donor. A Court of equity, on grounds of public policy, watches such transactions with a jealous scrutiny, and to set them aside it is not necessary to aver or prove actual fraud, or that there was such a degree of infirmity or imbecility of mind in the donor, as amounts to legal incapacity to execute a will or a valid deed or contract. Todd, vs. Grove, 33 Md., 195; Williams vs. Williams, 63 Md., 371. Lord Romilly in Cook vs. Lamotte, 15 Beav., 239, declared the law as follows: “The rule in cases of this description is this — Where those relations exist by means of which a person is able to exercise a dominion over another, the Court will annul a transaction under which a person possessing that power takes a benefit unless he can show that the transaction was a righteous one. It is very difficult to lay down with precision what is meant by the expression relation in which dominion may be exercised by one person over another.’ That relation exists in the cases of parent, of guardian, of solicitor, of spiritual adviser and of medical attendant, and may be said to apply to every case in which two persons are so situated that one may obtain considerable influence over the other. The rule of the Court, however, is not confined to such cases. Lord Cottenham considered that it extended to every case in which a [74]*74person obtains by donation a benefit from another to the prejudice of that other person and to his own advantage, and that it is essential in every such case, if the transaction should be afterwards questioned, that he should prove that" the donor voluntarily and deliberately performed the act, knowing its nature and effect. It is not possible to draw the rule tighter or to make it more stringent, and I believe it extends to every such case.” And in Everitt vs. Everitt, L. R., 10 Eq.,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
24 A. 645, 76 Md. 54, 1892 Md. LEXIS 25, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whitridge-v-whitridge-md-1892.