Wright v Vanderplank
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 08 March 1856 |
| Date | 08 March 1856 |
| Court | High Court of Chancery |
English Reports Citation: 44 E.R. 340
BEFORE THE LORDS JUSTICES.
S. C. 2 K. & J. 1; 25 L. J. Ch. 753; 2 Jur. (N. S.), 599; 4 W. R. 410. See Turner v. Collins, 1871, L. R. 7 Ch. 341; Mitchell v. Homfray, 1881, 8 Q. B. D. 592; Allcard v. Skinner, 1887, 36 Ch. D. 164; Tyars v. Alsop, 1889, 61 L. T. 9.
i / a fjAi [133] wright v. vanderplank. Before the Lords Justices. Feb. 25, 26, ' March 8, 1856. [S. C. 2 K. & J. 1; 25 L. J. Ch. 753 ; 2 Jur. (N. S.), 599 ; 4 W. R. 410. See Turner v. Collins, 1871, L. E. 7 Ch. 341; Mitchdl v. Homfray, 1881, 8 Q. B. D. 592; Alkard v. Skinner, 1887, 36 Ch. D. 164; Tyars v. Alsop, 1889, 61 L. T. 9.] A daughter executed a deed of gift of a life-estate to her father, soon after she attained twenty-one, having no advice except that of her father's solicitor, who however stated that he had on that occasion acted as the solicitor of the daughter, and had informed the father that he could take no instructions from him. She afterwards consulted a different solicitor as to the validity of the deed, and corresponded with her father on the subject of the application of the rents of the property. A year afterwards she married, and negotiations took place between her father and a solicitor, who acted for her intended husband and also for her, from which it appeared that she was aware of her father's interest under the deed of gift, and made no objection to it. She and her husband executed a post-nuptial settlement, which was expressed to be subject to the father's life estate^ She died more than ten years after the date of the deed of gift, and then her husband, to whom her rights devolved, filed a bill to set that deed aside. Held, 1st, that it might have been set aside but for subsequent acts of acquiescence; 2d, that there had been such acquiescence as to afford an effectual defence to the suit. Principles on which the Court acts in setting aside transactions between parent and child. Where a father who was not of ability to maintain his daughter had, as her guardian, received the rents of her property, but had maintained her during her infancy and till her marriage, and had spent a considerable sum in the costs of a suit relating to her property, which ended beneficially for her, but of which her estate had to bear the costs: Held, that he was, in the circumstances of the case, entitled to retain the rents so received, by way of allowance for her education and his expenditure on her behalf. This was an appeal of the Plaintiff from a decree of Vice-Chancellor Wood, reported in the second volume of Messrs. Kay & Johnson's Reports (page 1), dismissing the bill without costs. The Appellant had been the husband of a deceased 8DSO.M.*eHM. WRIGHT V. VANDERPLANK 341 daughter of the Kespondent, and now sought in her right to set aside a deed of gift executed by her soon after she attained the age of twenty-one years. The factg of the case appear sufficiently from the reports below and the judgments. Mr. Eolt and Mr. Cole, for the Appellant. On the question of the original validity of the deed they referred to Young v. Peachy (2 Atk. 254); Rock v. O'Brien (1 Ball & B. 330); [134] Dunbar v. Trendennick (2 Ball & B. 304); Bellamy v. Sabine (2 Ph. 425); Neesam v. Clarkson (2 Hare, 163); Phillipstm v. Gatty (7 Hare, 516); Archer v. Hudson (7 Beav. 551); Hoghton v. Hoghton (15 Beav. 278); Baker v. Bradley (7 De G. M. & G. 597). As to a voluntary deed being affirmed by a subsequent deed being expressed to be subject to it, Honner v. Morton (3 Russ. 65). As to general acquiescence, Duke of Leeds v. Earl Amherst (2 Ph. 117); Morse v. Royal (12 Ves, 355); Hatch v. Hatch (9 Ib. 292); Champion v. Rigby (1 Russ. & Myl. 539); Walmealey v. Booth (2 Atk. 27); Murray v. Palmer (2 Sch. & Lef. 474, 486); Bennett v. Colley (2 Myl. & K. 225); March v. Russell (3 Myl. & Cr. 31); -Allfrty v. Allfrty (10 Beav. 353; 1 Mac. & G. 87); Wedderlurn v. Wedderburn (4 Myl. & Cr. 41). As to taking an account of arrears of rents, Dawson v. Massey (1 Ball & Beat. 219). Mr. Willcock and Mr. R. Hawkins were for the Respondent. They referred to Roberts v. Tunstall (4 Hare, 261). Mr. Rolt, in reply. Judgment reserved. [136] the lord justice knight bruce. This is a case which has been, and must be, decided mainly on its particular circumstances. The suit, to which the parties are a son-in-law and his father-in-law, both Midland county yeomen, was instituted in the year 1853, for the purpose of setting aside a gift made to the Defendant by his daughter on the 8th of July 1843, some few months after her majority, of an estate for his life, without impeachment of waste, in lands, which may be fairly represented as worth not more nor less than 180 a year, and as having formed at the time the source of three-fifths of her income in possession. I say in possession, because she had then other property in reversion or remainder, which some years afterwards came into possession. She was the only child of his first marriage, and had lost her mother when not more than two or three years old. I say " his first marriage," but it appears to have been his only marriage until a time subsequent to his daughter's marriage with the Plaintiff, if not subsequent to her death; so that the Defendant had the merit, if that term may properly be used, of not having given her a stepmother. The bill also seeks an account of the daughter's rents received by the father during her minority, after her mother's death, and indeed until the daughter's marriage, which took place in 1844, when she was, I believe, in the twenty-third year of her age. As the father-in-law has married again, so has the son-in-law, and but for these second unions, or one of them, it seems likely enough that this litigation would not have been brought into existence. The daughter, who died in the year 1850, loft several children. The [136] father, at the commencement of the cause, was sixty-six years of age. There is issue of his second marriage. After, but not before, the daughter's marriage, there was a settlement of the property, or part of it, made by the Plaintiff and herself in March 1845 ; and I am not clear that but for that settlement, the subsequent conduct of the Plaintiff and his deceased wife during the residue of her life, and the fact of her death before the suit -I am not clear that if his title against the Defendant had stood on the same footing as it did immediately after the time of the Plaintiff's first marriage, he would not have had a right to relief in this Court against the life-estate conferred on the Defendant by the deed of the 8th of July 1843, though the Plaintiff before the marriage had express notice of it. I say so-not on the ground that the gift, made as it was by a daughter to her father, ought to be considered as immoderate or irrational-for when his age of fifty-six years at the time, their respective circumstances at the time in point of property, and particularly the amount of the income in possession which she retained, as well as that with which she presented him for his life, and her interest in the Prior's Marston estate which was thereafter to devolve on her, and did in 1848 devolve on 342 WRIGHT V. VANDERPLANK $ DE 0. M 6 0.1ST. her in possession, are recollected, my opinion is, that the gift ought not to be deemed immoderate or irrational-nor on the ground that in the matter of the preparation or of the execution of the deed the solicitor who was employed failed professionally or otherwise in the performance of his duty to the young lady; for upon the evidence I think that he did not so fail; nor on the ground that she was led or induced to execute the deed by or through any suppression, any misrepresentation, or any kind of coercion, or of fraud or deceit; for upon the evidence I think that she [137] was not so; nor on the ground that when she executed the deed she was acting under any mistake or misapprehension, or was not competent to understand well, or did not understand well, what she was doing, or did not intend the instrument to operate and have effect according to its actual purport and tenor; for upon the evidence my opinion is, that she was not then under any mistake or misapprehension, and did then well understand what she was doing, and did then intend the deed to operate and have effect according to its actual purport and tenor; nor on the ground that she executed it in ignorance of the value of what she gave, or in ignorance of what she kept, or in ignorance of any fact material to the guidance of her judgment in the matter ; for upon the evidence my opinion is, that she did not; nor on the ground that the Defendant acted dishonestly in the transaction ; for upon the evidence I think that he did not;-but upon the ground of the close attention, the strictness, and the jealousy with which, upon principles of natural justice, and upon considerations important to the interests of society, the law of this country examines, scrutinizes, and, if I may borrow an old expression, weighs in golden scales every transaction between a guardian and his ward, or between a parent and his child, which, including or consisting of a gift from the younger to the elder, takes place so soon after the termination of the legal authority, as that the ward or child may, in consequence, probably be-not, in the largest and amplest sense of the term-not, in mind as well as person-an entirely free agent. In the present instance, however, having regard to the nature and state of the evidence^ applicable as well to the time anterior as to the time subsequent to the daughter's marriage, I am satisfied that the acts and conduct of herself and the Plaintiff between their marriage in 1844 [138] and her death in 1850, coupled as they are with the fact of that death happening before the suit, are sufficient to preclude him from such title, if any, to relief against the deed or any portion of it, as otherwise he would have had, the bill not having...
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