Court Opinion

ID: 9571596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:33:13.633266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:40.938137
License: Public Domain

Sheran, Justice
(concurring specially).
Because I do not think that the remand limits the trial judge to a determination that the transaction involved was or was not a gift, I add these comments in explanation of my vote to concur.
The meager record on which the trial judge was required to act suggests that the parties reached the courtroom because both assumed, mistakenly as things developed, that they would be able to live together harmoniously in a home purchased by defendants who made the down-payment with money advanced by the deceased and committed themselves to monthly payments of the balance presumably in reliance on the payment of $100 per month by deceased for board and room. As a result of this mistake, and the failure of the parties to make any provision for their respective rights should their plan to live together prove unsatis*459factory, defendants received from the deceased $5,500, which he would not have transferred to them had he contemplated the events which did in fact occur. Defendants, on the other hand, acting in reliance upon the expressed willingness of the deceased to provide the downpayment for the home and to pay $100 a month for board and room, have committed themselves to the purchase of a house which they would not have otherwise bought and to the risk of losing this investment if the monthly payments go in default. All parties seem to have acted in good faith and the present difficulty is due to the fact that both were mistaken with respect to an essential condition of the arrangement.
The trial judge was clearly, right in his conclusion that the evidence failed to establish a loan. Brooks v. Worthington, 206 Va. 352, 143 S. E. (2d) 841. Defendants having pleaded affirmatively that the transaction amounts to a gift, it will be appropriate for the trial court upon remand, in view of our decision in Chard v. Darlington, 243 Minn. 489, 68 N. W. (2d) 405, to determine whether defendants have sustained their burden of proof on this issue.
But it will also be possible, I believe, particularly since the plaintiff’s prayer for relief requests “such other relief as may be just,” for the court to limit plaintiff to equitable relief on the theory of unjust enrichment. If this is done, the measure of recovery will be the benefit accruing to the defendants by reason of the mutual mistake. The court will be free to take into consideration any detriment suffered by the defendants in reasonable reliance upon the conduct and assurances of the deceased and, if it is determined that defendants are indebted to the deceased in some amount, to fix the terms and conditions of repayment in order to avoid the hardship to the defendants which would result if a sum accepted in the reasonable anticipation that repayment would not be demanded becomes an enforceable obligation payable in full and on demand. See, Scott, Restitution From an Innocent Transferee Who is Not a Purchaser For Value, 62 Harv. L. Rev. 1002; Annotation, 40 A. L. R. (2d) 997.
By remanding the case to the district court it will be possible for the parties and the trial judge to give further consideration to the troublesome problems posed by this case and it is for this reason that I concur with the disposition embodied in the majority opinion.