Court Opinion

ID: 9768488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:05:54.928441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:41.331236
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
Among the cases which have Had our serious consideration in weighing the merits of appellants’ contentions are McMichael v. Elliott, Tex.Civ.App., 235 S.W.2d 231, and Harrison v. Davis, Tex.Civ.App., 58 S.W.2d 1025.
In the McMichael case, a suit was brought by ‘ Elliott’s surviving widow and child to cancel a deed and a lease contract. A jury found that Elliott did not have sufficient mental capacity to execute a warranty deed to McMichael; it then found that he did not execute the deed in good faith but did so with the intention of defrauding his wife, not for the purpose of discharging *501the taxes due and owing against the property. We agree with the appellate court’s holding that the findings in the McMichael case present a .conflict requiring reversal. of the trial court’s judgment. We believe the word, intention as used in connection with good faith, fraud and purpose must he given a broader meaning in the Mc-Michael case than we ought to ascribe to the word when we consider it in its context in the present case.
What we have said above is even more applicable in the case of Harrison v. Davis, supra: Hays was a bachelor '80 years old who had lived “in isolation, * * ' * filth, loneliness, and suspicion.” He developed some unexpected obligations, so.he shrewdly went, about a design to defraud his creditors, which he ■ executed with such “astounding success” that he “thoroughly deceived” his creditors. Part of his scheme was to convey his estate to Harrison for' the' alleged consideration of the' latter’s talcing care of him the remainder of his life. The jury found that Hays- was not mentally cápable of making the conveyance to Harrison but found also that he had made-the conveyance to hinder, delay and' defraud his creditors. ' The facts of the case and the context in which' the word intent is used in the Háys case do indeed give the word as there, used such a broad meaning as to require a reversal on the ground of a conflict 'in jury findings. But we do not consider the Harrison case analogous to the situation before us in the instant case. '
A case which by implication recognizes the.difference between an intention'to make a gift and mental capacity to do so is Connors v. Murphy, 100 N.J.Eq. 280, 134 A. 681, 53 A.L.R. 1115. It involved a suit by an administrator to set aside a gif-t of money in a bank account made by the deceased in his lifetime. The court said the intention to make agift-was not questioned. ■ However the complainant insisted that the deceased did not have the mental capacity to make a valid gift. The court then- very carefully considered- the evidence to determine whether the deceased at the time possessed mental capacity and concluded that the undisputed testimony showed that he1 did. ' But' the case is significant' here because the court by implication held that while the -intention to- make a gift was not in question, the mental capacity of the donor was in question and the court then weighed- the' testimony' in order to determine the question of mental- capacity-.
Appellants’ motion for rehearing is overruled. . . ...
CRAMER, J., dissents.-