Court Opinion

ID: 9637971
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:28:13.952272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:02.426533
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(concurring).
I have no doubt that the Court’s decision is sound in light of the standards that we must now apply. My approach to the problem being somewhat different from the Court’s however, I deem it appropriate to add this separate statement.
A constructive trust arises “[wjhere a person holding title to property is subject to an equitable duty to convey it to another on the ground that he would be unjustly enriched if he were permitted to retain it.” Restatement of Restitution § 160 (1937); Truver v. Kennedy, 425 Pa. 294, 229 A.2d 468, 474 (1967); Chambers v. Chambers, 406 Pa. 50, 54, 176 A.2d 673, 675 (1962). A transferee is under such an equitable duty to reconvey property to the transferor if the transfer was induced by fraud, duress, undue influence, or mistake, or if the transfer was the result of an abuse of a confidential relationship, Chambers v. Chambers, supra, at 54, 176 A.2d at 675. A confidential relationship “is not confined to particular association of parties but exists whenever one occupies toward another such a position of advisor or counselor as reasonably to inspire confidence that he will act in good faith for the other’s interest.” Silver v. Silver, 421 Pa. 533, 537, 219 A.2d 659 (1966). “Once a confidential relationship is shown to.have existed between the parties *531to a transfer of property, the transferee bears the burden of proving that he took no unfair advantage of his relationship with the transferor.” Peoples First National Bank & Trust Company v. Ratajski, 399 Pa. 419, 160 A.2d 451 (1960). A transferor of property who seeks to have a constructive trust imposed must, of course, prove the facts which would entitle him to relief by evidence which is clear, precise, and convincing. See Truver v. Kennedy, 425 Pa. 294, 307, 229 A.2d 468 (1967); see generally Masgai v. Masgai, 460 Pa. 453, 333 A.2d 861 (1975); Sechler v. Sechler, 403 Pa. 1, 7, 169 A.2d 78 (1961).
Under our case law a confidential relationship has been presumed with respect to transfers of property from a wife to her husband; in such cases, therefore, the husband as transferee has borne the burden of proving that he acted in good faith and took no undue advantage of his wife. Shapiro v. Shapiro, 424 Pa. 120, 129, 224 A.2d 164 (1966). There has been, however, no correlative presumption of a confidential relationship between spouses with respect to transfers of property from a husband to his wife; rather, it has been presumed that a gift by the husband was intended. Lapayowker v. Lincoln College Preparatory School, 386 Pa. 167, 125 A.2d 451 (1956). I agree with the Court that this difference in treatment of transfers of property as between spouses violates the Equality of Rights Amendment of the Constitution of Pennsylvania.*
I also agree that this constitutional infirmity in our law is best remedied by the complete abolition of any presumption of a confidential relationship in the marital setting. Application of such a presumption in favor of wives only is a vestige of days, long passed, when it was *532normal and expected that husbands should manage the family money and property without the advice or consent of their wives. No purpose would be served by providing for the equality of treatment of spouses by the extension of the presumption of a confidential relationship between spouses in order to afford protection to husbands, for neither husbands nor wives, as a class, today occupy the rather passive and submissive role to which women formerly were relegated.
The abolition of the presumption of a confidential relationship in a marital setting does not, of course, preclude a person from showing that a confidential relationship in fact existed in his or her marriage. As it is the province of the fact-finder to resolve disputes as to the existence of such a relationship, and as the chancellor below cast his findings in light of a now discarded presumption, I agree with my Brother ROBERTS that a remand for factual findings on this issue would ordinarily be in order. Because, however, my independent review of the record convinces me that a finding of a confidential relationship could not be supported by the record, I concur in the reversal of the chancellor’s decree.

 Article I, Section 28, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania, adopted May 18, 1971, provides:
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because of the sex of the individual.”