Case Title: Virginia Home for Boys and Girls v. Phillips

Citation: 

Docket Number: 090010

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2010-01-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, Goodwyn, and 
Millette, JJ., and Russell, S.J. 
 
VIRGINIA HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 
   OPINION BY 
SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL 
v.  Record No. 090010  
        January 15, 2010 
 
WILLIAM RAY PHILLIPS, ET AL. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF SUSSEX COUNTY 
Sam Campbell, Judge 
 
 
This is a dispute between a devisee under a will and a 
relative of the testator claiming under an oral agreement.  It 
involves the “Dead Man’s Statute,” Code § 8.01-397, and the 
Statute of Frauds, Code § 17-2. 
Facts and Proceedings 
 
In accordance with familiar principles of appellate 
review, the facts will be stated in the light most favorable 
to the prevailing party at trial.  William Ray Phillips 
(Phillips) grew up in Sussex County.  He lived with his 
parents about a mile away from the farm of Wayland and 
Margaret Council.  Wayland Council (Wayland) was Phillips’ 
uncle.  At the age of ten, Phillips moved to the Council home 
and lived with them, helping with the farm work, until he 
graduated from high school.  The Councils had no children and 
Phillips was described by another relative as “the closest 
thing they had to a son.”  Phillips went to college after high 
school.  In 1970, shortly after finishing college, he was 
employed by a tobacco company in Petersburg.  Thereafter, he 
married and lived with his wife in a home they acquired about 
five minutes away from his place of employment. 
 
In 1977, Phillips’ uncle Wayland asked him to come to the 
Councils’ farm in Sussex County to discuss a proposal.  During 
a conference at the Councils’ kitchen table, both Councils 
were present but Wayland “did . . . most of the talking.”  He 
proposed that Phillips move to the farm where the Councils 
would sell him a parcel of land on which to build a home for 
his family.  Philips would then work on the farm, assisting 
his uncle until 1980, when Wayland planned to retire.  
Thereafter, Phillips would take over the farming operation, 
paying rent to the Councils for the land, machinery and farm 
equipment, and a wage to Wayland for any farm work he might 
do.  Phillips was also to be available for any business or 
personal help the Councils might need in their later years.  
In return, Phillips testified, the Councils promised to leave 
him whatever assets they had, real or personal, when the last 
survivor of them died.  Phillips testified that he agreed to 
this proposal, understanding that the Councils might consume 
all their assets while living and that he could ultimately 
receive “everything or nothing, whatever was left in their 
estate was to go to me.”  The agreement was entirely oral and 
no written memoranda of it existed.  Only Phillips and the 
Councils were present at the conference. 
 
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In reliance on the agreement, Phillips sold his home, 
purchased 1.618 acres of the farm from the Councils, took out 
a construction loan, built a new home on the lot and moved 
there with his family, which now included a three-year-old 
son.  Phillips continued to commute to his job at the tobacco 
company in Petersburg from 1977 until his uncle retired in 
1980, adding about 40 miles per day to his travel to and from 
work.  He also helped his uncle with farm work. 
 
In 1980, when Wayland retired, Phillips took over the 
farming operation.  He paid rent to the Councils for the farm 
land and equipment, paid wages to Wayland and assisted the 
Councils with their affairs.  In 1980, Phillips’ first year of 
farming operations, the area experienced a severe drought.  In 
order to pay expenses for that year and to have “start-up 
money” for the next, Phillips borrowed $30,640 from a federal 
agency to be repaid over 20 years, secured by a second deed of 
trust on his home.  The Councils were not liable for this 
debt.  Phillips repaid the loan in 2001. 
 
Wayland died in 1982.  His will left all his property to 
his wife but provided that if she predeceased him, his entire 
estate would go to his nephew, Phillips.  Phillips testified 
that Margaret Council (Margaret) showed the will to him when 
they went to the clerk’s office to offer it for probate and 
told him “mine is just like it.” 
 
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In 1987, the plant in Petersburg was closed.  The tobacco 
company, however, offered Phillips an opportunity to transfer 
to another plant in Georgia.  Phillips declined the offer 
because he would be unable to fulfill his agreement with the 
Councils if he moved.  He was compelled to accept a position 
in Hampton with a considerably lower salary and benefits that 
required him to travel 100 miles per day to and from work. 
 
After Wayland died, other witnesses testified that 
Margaret became “angry . . . that he died,” “very eccentric,” 
“very reclusive,” and “would change her mind from one day to 
the next on what she was going to do.”  Phillips testified 
that her attitude toward him changed.  “She had become a 
little more reclusive.  Wanted to be by herself more.  Wanted 
to make decisions on her own.”  She gave Phillips a durable 
power of attorney in 1992, but in October 1996 Phillips 
received a letter from her attorney advising him that she had 
“made some changes in her estate plan.”  The letter enclosed a 
revocation of Phillips’ power of attorney. 
 
Margaret died on April 6, 2005.  Her will was admitted to 
probate.  Except for a few household furnishings, it leaves 
all her real and personal property to the “Virginia Home for 
Boys in Richmond, Inc.”  The name of that entity was changed 
in 2004 to Virginia Home for Boys and Girls (the Home) and 
 
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Phillips does not dispute that it is the proper party in 
interest. 
 
Phillips filed a complaint in the circuit court, naming 
the Home and the executrix under Margaret’s will as 
defendants.  He seeks imposition of a trust on Margaret’s 
assets and specific performance of the parol agreement he had 
made with the Councils in 1977.  Phillips contested neither 
the validity of the will nor Margaret’s testamentary capacity.  
The circuit court heard the evidence ore tenus, considered the 
briefs and arguments of counsel, and by a memorandum opinion 
ruled in Phillips’ favor, finding that his part performance of 
the parol agreement was sufficient to take the case out of the 
statute of frauds and that the existence of the agreement was 
sufficiently corroborated by circumstantial evidence.  The 
court entered an order directing transfer to Phillips of all 
of the net personal estate and all of the real property of 
which Margaret had died seized.  We awarded the Home an 
appeal. 
Analysis 
 
Code § 8.01-397 provides, in pertinent part: 
Corroboration required and evidence receivable when 
one party incapable of testifying. – In an action by 
or against a person who, from any cause, is 
incapable of testifying, or by or against the 
committee, trustee, executor, administrator, heir, 
or other representative of the person so incapable 
of testifying, no judgment or decree shall be 
 
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rendered in favor of an adverse or interested party 
founded on his uncorroborated testimony. 
 
The Home argues that this provision is fatal to Phillips’ 
claim because the record is devoid of any evidence, aside from 
the testimony of Phillips himself, that the 1977 kitchen-table 
conference ever took place, that any oral agreement was ever 
made between Phillips and the Councils, or, if such an 
agreement was made, what its terms and conditions were.  
Phillips agrees that no written memorandum of the agreement 
was made and that no other witnesses testified to its 
existence, but contends that the circumstantial evidence 
strongly corroborates his testimony.  He also points out that 
the circuit court’s findings of fact in his favor are entitled 
to a presumption of correctness and should not be disregarded 
on appeal unless they are plainly wrong or without evidence to 
support them. 
 
Code § 11-2 provides, in pertinent part: 
When written evidence required to maintain action.  
– Unless a promise, contract, agreement, 
representation, assurance, or ratification, or some 
memorandum or note thereof, is in writing and signed 
by the party to be charged or his agent, no action 
shall be brought in any of the following cases: 
 
. . . . 
 
  6.  Upon any contract for the sale of real estate, 
or for the lease thereof for more than a year; . . . 
 
 
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This section has repeatedly been held applicable to oral 
contracts to devise real estate.  See, e.g., Hill v. Luck, 201 
Va. 586, 589, 112 S.E.2d 858, 860 (1960); Clay v. Clay, 196 
Va. 997, 1004, 86 S.E.2d 812, 816 (1955); Ricks v. Sumler, 179 
Va. 571, 575, 19 S.E.2d 889, 890 (1942). 
 
A parol contract to devise land may, however, be taken 
out of the Statute of Frauds by evidence of part performance 
on the promisee’s part.  To prevail, the promisee must 
establish: (1) that the parol agreement relied on is “certain 
and definite in its terms,” (2) that his acts of part 
performance were done “in pursuance of the agreement proved,” 
and (3) that the agreement has been “so far executed that a 
refusal of full execution would operate a fraud” upon him.  
Clark v. Atkins, 188 Va. 668, 674-75, 51 S.E.2d 222, 225 
(1949) (quoting Wright v. Pucket, 63 Va. (22 Gratt.) 370, 374  
(1872).  See also Moorman v. Blackstock, Inc., 276 Va. 64, 79, 
661 S.E.2d 404, 412 (2008).  
 
The Home contends, among other things, that Phillips’ 
evidence fails to take the case out of the Statute of Frauds 
because of lack of competent proof of an agreement.  Thus, the 
Home contends, Phillips failed to meet the first two 
requirements of Clark, quoted above.  Phillips argues that the 
circumstantial evidence abundantly corroborates the existence 
 
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of the agreement, its terms, and his performance of all the 
duties it required of him, as the circuit court found. 
 
At common law, when one who would have been a party 
litigant had been rendered incapable, by death or incapacity, 
from testifying in his own behalf, an adverse party litigant 
was disqualified as a witness in his own behalf on the ground 
of interest.  The Dead Man’s Statute substituted the more 
flexible requirement that the testimony of the surviving 
witness be corroborated in place of the harsh common-law rule.  
Diehl v. Butts, 255 Va. 482, 488, 499 S.E.2d 833, 837 (1998); 
Vaughn v. Shank, 248 Va. 224, 229, 445 S.E.2d 127, 130 (1994); 
Hereford v. Paytes, 226 Va. 604, 608, 311 S.E.2d 790, 792 
(1984). 
 
We have, in many cases, considered the nature and degree 
of the corroboration required under this statute.  Because the 
statute’s purpose is remedial, the kind and quantity of 
corroboration required depend largely upon the facts of each 
case and no general rule of universal application exists.  It 
is well established that corroboration may be shown by 
circumstantial evidence, that not every material point upon 
which the surviving party testifies must be corroborated, and 
that corroboration need not rise to the level of confirmation, 
but need only serve to strengthen the surviving witness’ 
account.  Nevertheless, one essential requirement is implicit 
 
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in all our cases:  evidence, to be corroborative, must be 
independent of the surviving witness.  It must not depend upon 
his credibility or upon circumstances under his control.  It 
may come from any other competent witness or legal source, but 
it must not emanate from him.  Leckie v. Lynchburg Trust and 
Savings Bank, 191 Va. 360, 370, 60 S.E.2d 923, 928 (1950); see 
also Johnson v. Raviotta, 264 Va. 27, 32, 563 S.E.2d 727, 731 
(2002); Rice v. Charles, 260 Va. 157, 166, 532 S.E.2d 318, 323 
(2000); Martin v. Martin, 202 Va. 769, 774, 120 S.E.2d 471, 
474 (1961). 
Conclusion 
 
Our review of the record, in light of that requirement, 
discloses no evidence that is independent of Phillips’ 
testimony corroborating the existence or the terms of the 
parol agreement on which he relies.  Phillips’ personal 
credibility is not in question, and the circuit court was 
entitled to weigh it and find it persuasive.  The requirement 
of corroboration, however, imposed a separate burden upon 
Phillips that is independent of the weight and sufficiency of 
his own testimony.  The General Assembly chose to impose that 
burden to replace the heavier burden formerly imposed by the 
common law on a litigant claiming against an opponent 
incapable of testifying.  Although the requirement of 
corroboration might sometimes lead to results not intended by 
 
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parties to an oral agreement, it is evident that the 
legislative judgment was that such occasional unfortunate 
results were preferable to a state of the law in which every 
will would be subject to challenge after the testator’s death 
by a claimant asserting an oral agreement contrary to the 
will’s provisions, based only on the claimant’s self-serving 
testimony. 
 
Because Phillips failed to carry the burden of proving 
corroboration imposed upon him by the Dead Man’s Statute, his 
claim also fails to satisfy the Statute of Frauds.  As noted 
above, Code § 11-2(6) applies to parol contracts to devise 
land.  Part performance may only be relied on to take the case 
out of the Statute of Frauds when the claimant establishes 
that the parol agreement is “certain and definite in its 
terms” and that his part performance was done “in pursuance of 
the agreement proved.”  Clark, 188 Va. at 674-75, 51 S.E.2d at 
225.  Because of the effect of the Dead Man’s Statute, 
Phillips failed to meet the legal standard for proving either 
the terms of the parol agreement or its existence. 
 
We conclude that the circuit court erred in granting 
specific performance of the parol agreement and will 
accordingly reverse the judgment appealed from and enter final 
judgment in favor of the Home. 
Reversed and final judgment. 
 
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