Court Opinion

ID: 9631333
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:34:44.176025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:52.204845
License: Public Domain

Opinion by
Mr. Justice Allen M. Stearns,
The appeal is from a decree in equity dismissing a bill of complaint to set aside a deed executed by a father to his five children, who were the issue of Ms first marriage. Approximately two weeks after the execution and delivery of the deed the father remarried. The action against the children is by the father and his second wife.
The testimony is conflicting. The issue is one solely of fact. Plaintiffs allege that the deed was obtained through fraud and deceit of two of the sons. Defendants maintain that the grant was a voluntary one by the father, who was fully aware of the nature and effect of the conveyance.
*224Judge S off el, the able and experienced chancellor, heard the case and filed findings of fact and conclusions of law. Succinctly stated, she found that the father, who was sixty-three years of age, illiterate but with full knowledge and understanding, informed the children living with him that he was about to remarry but that he and his wife proposed to live at her home and that he would deed his home to them; that in pursuance to such statement, the father with two of his sons went to the office of his attorney, taking with him his deed, and directed his lawyer to prepare a deed for the property to his five children; the lawyer secured the necessary title information from the father but inquired concerning the advisability of deeding the property to the children, since the lawyer had prepared a will for the father shortly before, making the same disposition; the father explained to the lawyer that “he talked the matter over with his intended wife and that she was not interested in his property, as she had her own home, and he was going to live with her at her home”. The deed was duly prepared, was read and explained to the father, and he then executed and acknowledged it before an alderman. The instrument was thereafter delivered and recorded.
The chancellor, since she found the facts in defendants’ favor, manifestly believed defendants and their witnesses, but did not believe the testimony of plaintiffs, viz.: that the two sons caused their father to become intoxicated and fraudulently induced him to execute the deed. An appellate court will never substitute its own findings of fact, where the hearing judge’s findings are sufficiently supported by the evidence and approved by the court in banc. Such findings have the same weight as the verdict of a jury: Eichman v. Hersker, 170 Pa. 402, 33 A. 229; Armstrong County v. Rearic, 315 Pa. 133, 172 A. 130; Meitner v. Scarborough, 321 Pa. 212, 184 A. 81; Pennsylvania Company v. Wallace, 346 Pa. 532, 31 A. 2d 71.
*225We recognize the rule that where, however, the controlling findings are the result of deductions or inferences from undisputed evidence, such findings are reviewable by an appellate court: Blue Ridge Metal Manufacturing Company v. Proctor et al., 327 Pa. 424, 194 A. 559; William Sellers & Co., Inc. v. Clarke-Harrison, Inc., 354 Pa. 109, 46 A. 2d 497; Brooks v. Conston, 356 Pa. 69, 51 A. 2d 684, and the many cases therein. As was said by Judge Keller (later President Judge) in Altaffer v. Anderson Automobile Company, 77 Pa. Superior Ct. 63, at p. 65: “The appellee relies upon the well settled rule that the findings of fact of a judge sitting as a chancellor will not be disturbed on appeal except for clear or manifest error.
“This rule, however, has long been qualified to the extent that when the judgment of the court below is based upon an inference or deduction from other facts, the conclusion, being the result of reasoning, is subject to revision and correction by an appellate court, if erroneous: [citing cases].”
We regard the present findings, however, those purely of fact. They are in no sense the result of deduction and inference. But in any event, it is only where such inferences and deductions are erroneous that we will set them aside. The learned chancellor found from relevant testimony that the transfer was voluntarily made by a man who was not intoxicated and not under undue influence, who had stated to his children that he desired to provide them with a home before moving to the house of his second wife.
In transfers from a parent to a child there is no presumption of confidential relation. To avoid such a gift there must be proof of confidential relation and the exertion of fraud or undue influence: Gerner v. Kespelher, 351 Pa. 649, 41 A. 2d 860; Monongahela Trust Company v. Kazimer, 161 Pa. Superior Ct. 380, 54 A. 2d 841, and cases therein cited. In the present case not a *226scintilla of evidence, which was believed by the chancellor, was offered to prove fraud or undue influence.
A question might be raised as to whether, in any event, the wife-plaintiff has the status in this proceeding to demand relief inasmuch as she was not married to the husband-plaintiff at the time the conveyance in question was made. See Smigell v. Brod, 366 Pa. 612, 79 A. 2d 411. However, we express no opinion on that point.
The decree is affirmed at the cost of appellants.