Opinion ID: 1736728
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: was the chancellor's findings of fact contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence and manifestly wrong?

Text: As previously stated, in the September, 1985, hearing on the present matter, the lower court determined that a confidential relationship existed between appellant and his deceased mother, and as such ordered Angle to account to the court for all funds or personal property that he held that belonged to his mother. This determination of the existence of a confidential relationship has not been appealed and as such is final. In Murray v. Laird, 446 So.2d 575 (Miss. 1984) this Court stated that the existence of a confidential relationship gives rise to a presumption of undue influence. As such, under Murray, supra, the burden of going forward with the proof shifts to the grantee/beneficiary to prove by clear and convincing evidence: (1) good faith on the part of the grantee/beneficiary; (2) grantor's full knowledge and deliberation of his actions and their consequences; and, (3) advice of (a) a competent person, (b) disconnected from the grantee and (c) devoted wholly to the grantor/testator's interest. Murray at 578. Very recently, in Mullins v. Ratcliff, 515 So.2d 1183 (Miss. 1987) this Court declared in modifying Murray, that the appropriate third prong of the above test is now a requirement that the grantee/beneficiary prove by clear and convincing evidence that the grantor/testator exhibited independent consent and action. Mullins, at 1193. But this is not to say that independent advice is now to be disregarded. To the contrary, great weight is to be afforded to a showing of meaningful independent advice based upon all pertinent facts in that this will still act as one way to prove the independent consent and action required under our decision in the Mullins case. See Estate of McRae v. Watkins, 522 So.2d 731 (Miss. 1988). Appellees filed their objections and exceptions to Angle's accounting. In the subsequent hearing, the lower court found the accounting to be deficient in forty-five (45) findings of fact. Appellant now challenges twenty-three (23) of the chancellor's fact findings as being manifestly wrong. We must state in this regard that the record, as a matter of fact, is vague, contradictory, and absent at some points of any evidence that would substantiate the figures in appellant's accounting. The record further shows that appellant totally failed, by clear and convincing evidence, to properly account for monies he spent belonging to his mother, and, therefore, Chancellor Barnett was correct in finding the twenty-three (23) separate deficiencies in Angle's accounting now challenged. In this regard, Angle failed to meet the burden of proof cast on him by Mullins, supra . It must again be stated that this Court will not on appeal set aside a chancellor's findings of fact unless such is manifestly wrong. Dillon v. Dillon, 498 So.2d 328 (Miss. 1986); Country Club of Jackson v. Saucier, 498 So.2d 337 (Miss. 1986). We must further note that appellant, in his brief, attempts to substantiate many of the deficient figures placed in his accounting by making arguments and explanations not presented to the lower court. This he cannot do. This Court will not look to briefs to supply that which is not of record on appeal, and will not act upon assertions of fact made only in briefs. Alexander v. Hancock, 174 Miss. 482, 164 So. 772 (1936); Commercial Credit Co. v. Kilgore, 221 So.2d 363 (Miss. 1969). As Angle fails to show on appeal by credible argument the manner in which the lower court was manifestly wrong, the assignment of error is without merit.