Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/8/744.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 23:46:29+00:00

Document:
Evelle J. Younger, Attorney General, Carl Boronkay and Toni Rae Bruno, Deputy Attorneys General, Hill, Farrer & Burrill and William S. Scully, Jr., for Defendants and Appellants.
Albert J. Forn for Plaintiffs and Respondents.
Plaintiffs, the children of Joe Crail, Sr., and Lucile Sprague Crail, both deceased, brought suit to enforce an oral agreement between [8 Cal. 3d 747] their parents whereby the surviving parent would devise and bequeath all of their combined property (which was entirely community property) to plaintiffs. Mr. Crail, the survivor, in fact left the bulk of this property to defendants, fn. 1 and only 1/14th thereof to plaintiffs. The trial court found that the alleged oral agreement did exist, that Mr. Crail breached it, that such breach was inequitable, and that his estate and those claiming through him are estopped from relying upon the statute of frauds as a bar to the enforcement of the agreement. The judgment provided that the special administrator of Mr. Crail's estate shall hold all estate property in trust for plaintiffs. We have concluded that the trial court's findings are supported by substantial evidence, and that the judgment should be affirmed.
Plaintiff alleged, and the trial court found, that on or before April 18, 1953, Mr. and Mrs. Crail orally agreed that the first spouse who died would leave his or her estate to the other spouse, on the condition that the survivor would leave their combined estate to their children in equal shares. The evidence disclosing the existence of the oral contract is sparse but is substantial enough to constitute support for the trial court's findings.
[2a] In addition to evidence establishing the existence of mutual wills, the court heard testimony from Mattie Martis, the Crails' housekeeper for 18 years, who witnessed the execution of the mutual wills. Mrs. Martis testified that in 1953 Mrs. Crail asked her to come to the Crail house for some undisclosed reason. When she arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Crail met her [8 Cal. 3d 748] at the back door; according to Mrs. Martis, "they wanted to make out a will or a contract, or whatever it is that they make out to protect their children ...." Mrs. Crail said that she wanted Mrs. Martis and Lucile Irving, another girl who worked there, to sign the documents. According to Mrs. Martis, Mr. Crail said "that the way they was going to fix it, if anything happened to either one the other fellow, everything would go to the mother or to the father, meaning him or Mrs. Crail, and in order to protect the children and would, that like if Mrs. Crail would die first everything she had would go to Mr. Crail and the children, then if he should die then everything would go to the children so they'd be protected." (Italics added.) Mrs. Martis recalled that Mr. Crail (who was an attorney) used the word "contract" in describing the arrangement. She testified "That is what he said, it was a contract between the two of them," although she also remembered that Mr. Crail used both the term "wills" and the term "contract."
When she was asked whether Mr. Crail had explained what the provisions of the contract were, Mrs. Martis replied "He let us read it, he gave me one to read and he made one out, his own, and he told Lucile Irving, the other girl, to read the other one. ..." After reading these documents (which actually were the 1953 mutual wills), the "girls" signed them as witnesses. Mrs. Martis also remembered that, in Mr. Crail's presence, Mrs. Crail had told her "That's right, Mattie and Lucile, papa and I have made this contract to make a will to protect our children."
Defendants first contend that Mrs. Martis' testimony was too vague to furnish the "clear and convincing evidence" required by the cases. (See Notten v. Mensing, supra, 3 Cal. 2d 469, 477.) They point to her evident confusion regarding the nature of the documents which she was asked to sign, and they note that she never testified that the Crails had agreed not to revoke their mutual wills.
[2b] We conclude that substantial evidence was introduced to support the trial court's findings regarding the existence of the oral contract at issue.
In the instant case, the trial court found that in furtherance of the oral agreement, the Crails executed mutual and reciprocal wills, that Mrs. Crail died in 1962 without having changed her will, that her execution of that will and her forbearance to change that will were intended by her as performance of the agreement, that she died relying upon the agreement and believing that her husband would carry it out, that Mr. Crail succeeded to her estate, accepted its benefits, but breached the agreement by attempting to dispose of his estate contrary to its terms, that his conduct was inequitable, and that plaintiffs would be defrauded were defendants permitted to rely upon the statute of frauds to defeat plaintiffs' claim.
Defendants contend that the evidence fails to support the requisite finding that Mrs. Crail changed her position in reliance upon the agreement. With respect to the reliance aspect, there was, however, ample evidence that Mrs. Crail believed in the continued existence of, and relied upon, the agreement with her husband. Witness Sartain testified that in 1955, Mrs. Crail told him that she and her husband had drafted wills and a contract to assure "that nothing would be taken away from the children in later years"; this contract was made "to protect the will" from being "broken." Witness Madden testified that in 1961 Mrs. Crail told him that she was considering taking her life in order to assure that Mr. Crail would be bound by his agreement to leave his estate to their children upon his death. According to Madden, "Mrs. Crail indicated she was afraid that Mr. Crail might be talked into changing his mind and might try to pressure her into changing their wills, and she wanted to preclude that possibility by taking her life." Witness Jones, Mrs. Crail's psychiatrist, testified to a [8 Cal. 3d 752] similar conversation with her in 1962. fn. 4 It is uncontradicted that Mrs. Crail died by her own hand on March 5, 1962.
Defendants point out that plaintiffs are seeking equitable relief in the nature of "quasi-specific performance," and that accordingly, plaintiffs were required to prove, among other things, that the contract is supported by adequate consideration and is sufficiently definite and certain in its terms to be enforced, and that plaintiffs (or the person through whom they claim) performed their side of the bargain. (See Porporato v. Devincenzi, 261 Cal. App. 2d 670, 674 [68 Cal. Rptr. 210].) Defendants claim that plaintiffs established none of these prerequisites to recovery.
Defendants assert that the evidence disclosed that Mrs. Crail had committed a material breach of the oral agreement by "diverting" $20,000 from her estate shortly before her death and giving it to her son, Joe Crail, Jr. Although requested to do so, the trial court failed to make a finding on this issue.
Under the provisions of Civil Code section 3392, specific performance will be denied to one who has not fully and fairly performed his own obligations under the contract, "except where his failure to perform is only partial, and either entirely immaterial, or capable of being fully compensated, in which case specific performance may be compelled, upon full compensation being made for the default."
Defendants' final contention is one that deserves only brief discussion. They assert that the trial court should have denied plaintiffs any relief on the basis of Mrs. Crail's "unclean hands" in killing herself. They also maintain that to enforce the oral contract in plaintiffs' favor would be contrary to the public policy against suicide. These arguments border upon frivolity. We are not dealing here with a contract contemplating the suicide of one of the parties, but a contract to make and maintain wills leaving property to plaintiffs.  Such a contract, as we have recently noted, is neither void nor unenforceable as against public policy. (Redke v. Silvertrust, supra, 6 Cal. 3d 94, 104.) Defendants cannot conceivably show that they were prejudiced in any manner by Mrs. Crail's decision to take her own life.
Wright, C. J., McComb, J., Tobriner, J., Mosk, J., and Sullivan, J., concurred.
FN 1. Among the various legatees are certain undesignated charitable beneficiaries represented by the Attorney General, a named codefendant.
FN 2. After Mrs. Martis had been excused, and had apparently returned to her home in Oroville, plaintiffs' counsel read the following portion of her deposition testimony into the record, over defendants' objection: "[Question by Mr. Miller, counsel for defendants] Will you tell us again what was said about the contract? [Answer by Mrs. Martis] Mr. Crail said that, 'Mama and I have talked it over and we decided to, we made a contract between ourselves to make out this will to protect our children,' and Mrs. Crail said, 'That's right, that is what papa and I have done, we have made that contract between ourselves to make out the will to protect our children,' that is what they both said to me, to me and Lucile Irving."
Defendants contend that the foregoing deposition testimony was inadmissible, since the trial court made no finding that Mrs. Martis was in fact unavailable for further examination. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 2016, subd. (d)(3).) The receipt of the testimony, if error, was harmless for as we explain below, Mrs. Martis' in-court testimony regarding the existence of a contract to protect the Crail children was sufficient to support the trial court's findings.
FN 3. As pointed out in Notten v. Mensing, supra, 3 Cal. 2d 469, 477, "we are well aware that in [these] cases the temptation is strong for those who are so inclined to fabricate evidence giving color to the claim that the parties entered into such an oral agreement as is here alleged. On the trial on the merits, the burden rests on the plaintiff to prove the oral agreement by full, clear and convincing evidence. [Citations.]"
Defendants assert that it is "inconceivable" that an attorney such as Mr. Crail would not have expressed the substance of the alleged oral contract in writing, or at least have referred to the contract in the mutual wills. Yet, as the plethora of cases involving such oral contracts indicates, such arrangements are not as uncommon as counsel suppose. Indeed, in a recent case it appeared that ordinary (though illicit) business motives may have played a role in the husband's decision not to reduce the agreement to writing. (See Redke v. Silvertrust, supra, 6 Cal. 3d 94.) Another possible, and improper, motive for not expressing such an agreement in writing would be, of course, to afford the promisor an opportunity to repudiate that agreement following the death of the other spouse.
FN 4. The testimony of witnesses Sartain, Madden and Jones was admitted for the limited purpose of showing Mrs. Crail's state of mind, and not for the purpose of proving the existence of the oral agreement. (See Evid. Code, § 1251.) As the issue of reliance necessarily involves an inquiry into state of mind, no error was committed in permitting the introduction of this testimony. Defendants' reliance upon Lynch v. Lichtenthaler, 85 Cal. App. 2d 437, 442-443 [193 P.2d 77], is misplaced, for in that case the testimony at issue was sought to prove the existence of the oral contract, not to prove the declarant's state of mind or reliance upon that contract.
FN 5. There was ample evidence disclosing a gradual deterioration of the marital relationship, including Mrs. Crail's loss of confidence and trust in her husband. Yet, as we have noted, Mrs. Crail retained a firm belief in the continued existence of the oral contract, a belief which, as previously noted, evidently induced her to take her life to insure that it would be carried out.
FN 6. At one point in his testimony, Joe, Jr., testified over objection that Mrs. Crail's assets in 1962 amounted to $500,000 as a "rough estimate." However, following unreported discussion between the trial court and counsel, plaintiffs' attorney "withdrew the question at this time," and when he later sought to ask the question again, the court sustained defendants' objection. Plaintiffs' counsel now assert that the $20,000 gift "constituted perhaps one percent or two percent of her [Mrs. Crail's] 1962 community share of the Crail properties ...." Defendants have not contradicted this assertion, although in connection with another issue, they cite and rely upon Joe, Jr.'s $500,000 estimate. Indeed, at oral argument defendants' counsel seemed to concede the immateriality of the $20,000 gift.

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