Source: http://masscases.com/cases/app/60/60massappct138.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:35:09+00:00

Document:
Present: ARMSTRONG, C.J., KAPLAN, & PORADA, JJ.
Fraud. Deed, Rescission. Real Property, Deed, Conveyance. Executor and Administrator, Recovery of assets.
CIVIL ACTION commenced in the Superior Court Department on February 8, 2000.
The case was tried before Robert A. Mulligan, J.
Nicole M. Procida for the plaintiff.
Lois M. Farmer for Una Martin Puglisi.
KAPLAN, J. Suppose an executor sues to rescind a conveyance wrested from the testator by fraud and to retrieve the property for the estate: what if it was the beneficiary under the will who committed the fraud? Such a question resounds in this appeal.
Yarmouth, Massachusetts, to John, Jr. and Una as tenants by the entirety. The deed was placed on record on July 28, 1988. John, Sr. died on December 18, 1988. Catherine died on September 28, 1996. Her will of May 20, 1988, named John, Jr. executor, and under the terms of the will he is now sole beneficiary. [Note 3] The estate has no assets save (as will appear) a possible claim for rescission of the deed.
In December, 1998, Una left John, Jr. to live separate and apart. John, Jr. promptly commenced suit for divorce in the Surrogate's Court in New York, the State in which the couple (as well as John, Jr.'s parents) had long resided. The divorce suit is still pending.
2. The "Complaint for Equitable Relief" prayed for rescission of the deed, charging the grantees, John, Jr. and Una, with "fraud, deceit and/or trickery" in procuring the signatures of the grantors, who were alleged to have "lacked knowledge that they were signing a deed."
We may overlook the preliminaries of the action and come to the trial on July 25, 2001, on this theme of rescission.
The plaintiff called Una as a witness. She denied having had any part in procuring the execution of the deed. The deed was shown to her sometime in 1989. Beginning with the summer of 1988 and continuing in summers thereafter through 1998, Una had occupied and enjoyed the Yarmouth house. Her husband paid only a few visits there. Una did not see much of either parent although they resided nearby in Westchester County, New York. Una described various occasions of meeting.
Mary Scattaretico testified that John, Jr. told her of the deed after Una left him. She attributed his resignation as executor and her nomination as administratrix to John, Jr.'s failing health at the time and the fact of her being the oldest family member. The supposed health reason, however, was shaken on cross-examination. Mary said Catherine spoke several times of disliking Una -- but without vouchsafing any reason.
The judge refused the directed verdict, thus negating the "unclean hands" point. [Note 12] He went on to formulate questions for the jury (not objected to by the parties): was the deed a valid conveyance? which if answered "yes" would render redundant the second question, did John, Jr. defraud his parents? In his charge to the jury, the judge brought out that at all events, the plaintiff, to succeed, must sustain the burden of proving fraud by a preponderance. On this basis, the jury answered "yes" to the first question.
counsel renewed an argument he had made earlier, namely, that under the law of New York, which he believed applicable, and which stood, so he thought, in contrast to Massachusetts law, Una, to succeed in defending against rescission, must assume and sustain the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the deed was a valid conveyance, the model being the proof needed to establish an inter vivos deed of gift. The judge considered that getting the jury's answer to a question on this line would seal the case from all angles. So the jury were held in place, the judge (over Una's objection) gave further instructions and put to them the question, whether they find on clear and convincing evidence that the deed was a valid conveyance? -- the burden now to be carried by the defense. The jury returned in forty minutes with the answer "yes." Thus ended the trial, and judgment entered.
3. We reach the present appeal. The plaintiff acquiesced in the first instructions and jury questions but persuaded the judge to turn about with a jury question and instructions reversing the burden of proof and invoking New York law. As the plaintiff was denied nothing below, her position on appeal seems parlous. The plaintiff now contends that the submission under the foreign law was the correct approach, but, she adds, the situation at the end was so confused that the jury's answer to the final question was prejudiced: it may have been all too easy for the jury to cling unthinkingly to their earlier response.
increase the boodle. There are plenty of examples of suits to rescind transactions which are aborted and dismissed when it turns out the plaintiff participated in the wrong that is the ground for the rescission. For prototypical Massachusetts instances, see Lawton v. Estes, 167 Mass. 181 (1896) (one heir improperly purchases property at tax sale; plaintiff heir, otherwise entitled upon rescission of the sale to a fractional undivided share with others, is dismissed for having connived at the sale); Lyons v. Elston, 211 Mass. 478 (1912) (defendant secured deed from mother through undue influence; in suit by two relatives to rescind the deed and regain the property, one is dismissed because she participated in the wrong). Finally, the plaintiff administratrix herein cannot separate herself from the wrongdoer John, Jr.: he made her his straw or front or stand-in, as he confirms when he says he thought it would be unseemly for him (qua executor) to sue himself.
[Note 1] Of the estate of Catherine Puglisi.
[Note 2] Una Martin Puglisi, his wife.
[Note 3] Catherine's will devised and bequeathed all her property to her husband, John, Sr., but if he did not survive her (as happened), then to their son John, Jr., if he should survive her.
[Note 4] It will become evident that in reality John, Jr. is aligned as plaintiff. He appeared in the action but took no part in the proceedings.
[Note 5] As already noted, the father died within two years of the deed. The mother went into a nursing home a year later; she was described as "vague."
[Note 6] We suggest the proper outcome of the action would not be affected even if John, Jr. could show that Una had been involved in the scheme. It reminds of the maxim in pari delicto potior est conditio defendentis, which suggests that one in tortious league with another is generally without remedy against the other. See to this effect Lawton v. Estes, cited infra, 167 Mass. at 183.
[Note 7] The other grounds asserted were statutes of limitations, laches, abuse of process, and insufficient evidence.
[Note 8] A suggestion emerged that John, Jr. was funneling some of his money into Una's bank account in order to avoid payment of judgments against him.
[Note 9] Una had entered a counterclaim but it was agreed to be withdrawn without prejudice.
[Note 10] Both parties seem to have assumed that rescission, if allowed, would have this one hundred percent result for John, Jr. We need not get into the details of the divorce court's likely distributions that might diminish John, Jr.'s putative recovery; so might possible creditors' claims.
[Note 11] The deed itself sets out a notary's jurat dated the date of the execution of the deed but this hint of the genuineness of the deed was not followed up.
[Note 12] Also presumably negated was the timeliness point. The judge indicated he would consider and rule on this question, but the record remains silent.
[Note 13] It is agreed that this issue is available to a court even if not raised by the party. See McClintock, Principles of Equity § 26, at 60 (2d ed. 1948). Here Una took the precaution of noting a cross appeal for error in denying the unclean hands claim and presumably in denying the untimeliness claim.
[Note 14] A Cooley Lecture published in Chafee, Some Problems of Equity 1-102 (1950).
[Note 15] Thus: Man and woman marry in a State they know to be jurisdictionally invalid for the purpose. Years later the woman sues for divorce and support. The unclean hands maxim might seem pertinent (and the pari delicto maxim as well), but the court does not condemn the woman to stew in her own juices; the court says, "it is inconsistent with good conscience and fair dealing to permit someone who holds herself or himself out as a spouse and lives as a spouse later to manipulate to that person's benefit a legal infirmity which she or he contrived." Crease v. Crease, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 187, 189 (1993). See Chafee, supra at 73-75.
[Note 16] Chief Baron Eyre who, according to Chafee, supra at 8, first uttered the maxim, "A man must come into a Court of Equity with clean hands," was well aware of the point: "it does not mean a general depravity; it must have an immediate and necessary relation to the equity sued for." Dering v. Earl of Winchelsea, 1 Cox Eq. 318, 319, 29 Eng. Rep. 1184, 1185 (Ex. 1787).
[Note 17] In 1950, Chafee, supra at 34-35, was still interested to show that unclean hands applied "at law" as well as "in equity," and he noted, further, that it could have analogical application in the criminal law, citing Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928). The Brandeis dissent, considering the admissibility of evidence procured illegally, invoked the civil concept of unclean hands. Id. at 483-485.
[Note 18] Hart & Sacks, The Legal Process 68-102 (Eskridge & Frickey eds., 1994), rings changes on the "The Case of the Spoiled Heir" and deals with statutory treatment of the murder model.
[Note 19] See note 17, supra. Justice Brandeis says, "The rule is one, not of action, but of inaction." Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. at 484.

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