Court Opinion

ID: 9631334
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:34:44.18129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:52.206396
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Musmanno:
It is with keen regret that I must disagree with my former colleague in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, the distinguished and able Judge Soffel, who found for the defendants in this case.
The record reveals that she devoted painstaking and most commendable care in her consideration of all the testimony and that she reached findings of fact warranted by the evidence. However, charged as we individually are with responsibility of review I am impelled to legal conclusions different from those arrived at by the Chancellor and affirmed by the majority of this Court.
In Blue Ridge Metal M. Co. v. N. Pa. P. Co., 327 Pa. 424, 194 A. 559, this Court said: “While the findings of fact of a chancellor, supported by competent evidence, and affirmed by the court in banc, are conclusive upon appeal: Belmont v. Heist, 300 Pa. 542; Clark’s Est., 303 Pa. 538; Brinton v. Davidson, 308 Pa. 371, such rule does not apply in favor of the deductions or inferences which are made by the chancellor from the facts which he has found. The conclusions of the chancellor being no more than his reasoning from the facts, are always reviewable upon appeal.”
*227It is not to be questioned that the owner of property has the inalienable right to do with it what he chooses, and once he voluntarily disposes of it, he may not capriciously recall his act, for such uncontrolled vacillation would lead to chaos a.nd disorder, making nothing secure and everything insecure. But this rule is based on the assumption that the act is a voluntary one. Man, presumed to be a reasoning animal, will not, lacking a cause, perform an act gratuitously prejudicial and harmful to himself.
The husband plaintiff in this case, Majk Andrikanics, is an immigrant mill worker without financial resources of any kind. Employed at the National Tube Company in McKeesport for 24. years, he was able from his earnings to purchase and pay for the modest house m which he lived with all his children, except the son George. One of his sons, Steve, paid him |16.00 per month rental for two rooms in the house.
Since the plaintiff has now repudiated the deed which he signed, the natural question arises as to why he made it in the first place. He explained at the trial that his sons Steve and Albert pressed alcoholic drinks upon him and had him believe that he was signing a will instead of a deed. In his broken English he testified as follows: “Saturday night give me drink whiskey, talking, give me whiskey in home, started talking. I says I going to see my wife. They say, ‘Oh, no, you no going no place, you going downtown’. I say, ‘What for?’ They say, ‘See our lawyer, McGinness’. I say, ‘What for?’ They say, ‘Going to make, fix up the will’. I says ‘I have a will, what are you going to fix?’ They say, ‘We going to fix up this today, you die before wife, after your wife no can bother us’.”
He testified further that his sons told him: “Come on, fix a will because you die before you wife, your wife no can bother us.”
*228The version of the son Steve, as to what occurred, was exactly to the contrary. He testified:“.... Right after supper father say, ‘I am getting married’. It was a shock to all of us, especially me. I says, ‘Who are you going to marry?’ He says, ‘Mary Motrinec’. Albert come up with a question, says, ‘Well, I suppose we will have a new boss, I suppose we will have to move’. Father says, ‘No, you don’t have to worry about moving, I will sign the property over to all the children’. In the meantime he told Albert to call up McGinness. When he did, I don’t know, whether it was Thursday or Friday, one of the two days.”
Edward J. McGinness, a highly reputable lawyer at the Allegheny County bar, testified that Majk Andrikanics in a thoroughly sober condition came to his office the night of December 7, 1946, accompanied by his two sons, Steve and Albert, that there was no coercion or deception in his presence, and that Andrikanics, after the transaction had. been explained to him, .voluntarily signed the. deed. That same evening the .deed was taken to an alderman and there acknowledged by Andrikanics.
In the consideration of all the facts and inferences from those .facts, the question constantly recurs: Why did Andrikanics dispossess himself of his only wealth? He had already willed the property to his children so that it cannot be said that he deeded it because he knew he couldn’t take it with him when he died. And then another question obtrudes: Why did .Steve place in his father’s hand $1.00 for consideration? Attorney Mc-Ginness did not advise this payment. If, as the defendants would seek to have the world believe, the father forced the property on them the night of December 7, 1946, why were they so well prepared to take care , of all the mechanics involved in the anticipated .transaction?Steve paid $1.00 consideration and also paid'for the acknowledgment,'and Albert .paid the lawyer.
*229George Andrikanics, who became one of tbe grantees under the deed, testifying against his own interest, declared that Steve had told him that he (Steve) “just had Dad drunk and pulled a fast one on him.” Steve denied he said this and the Chancellor found George’s testimony not worthy of credence and that it whs overcome by the weight of the credible evidence.
Although Steve testified that his father said he would not need his property because he was going to live with his new wife, the fact remains that both the wife and the husband plaintiff needed the property and attempted to collect rent from Steve for the rooms he occupied. And when they made this effort, they were ordered out of the house by Steve.
The Chancellor found as a fact that there was no confidential relationship between the plaintiff and the defendants. This is in reality a conclusion of law and, as such, I believe, not borne out by the evidence. “Confidential relation is any relation existing between parties to a transaction wherein one of the parties is bound to act with the utmost good faith for the benefit of the other party and can take no advantage to himself from his acts relating to the interest of the other party.” Brooks, et al., Aplnts. v. Conston, 356 Pa. 69, 76, 51 A. 2d 684.
Mr. Justice Stern in Drob v. Jaffe, 351 Pa. 297, 41 A. 2d 407, said: “. . . a confidential relationship is not limited to any particular association of parties but exists wherever one occupies toward another such a position of advisor or counsellor as reasonably to inspire confidence that he will act in good faith for the other’s interest.”
I am satisfied that the record demonstrates a confidential relation here between the father and his children. The fact that the father was -up in years, without education, unaware of-legal forms, unable to read *230English, all imposed upon the defendants here the duty to explain thoroughly to him what was intended and what would be the effects upon his rights if he signed the deed.
The burden of proof in this case was on the defendants to show that they did not exert undue influence on their father in getting him to sign the deed in question.
Toward the end of the trial, defendants’ counsel offered to produce the testimony of the children who had not already testified and the learned Chancellor indicated that it would not be necessary to hear them. This ruling of the Chancellor was probably based upon her conclusion that the children had no burden of proof to meet on the issue of confidential relation. It is my belief that the children did have the burden of proof and that the Chancellor should have heard the testimony of the other children.