Court Opinion

ID: 9581786
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:18:49.153956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:15.158657
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). The defendant judgment •creditors have no interest in the subject matter of this contract between mother and son excepting such as are lawfully derivable through equities, if any, of the son. They stand in his shoes and should succeed or fail on strength or weakness of whatever right he possessed during the mother’s lifetime to resist equity-enforced reconveyance. The issue should be weighed and considered by this Court of conscience without regard to presence of such creditors and with exclusive view toward such decree as •equity would have awarded, to the mother prior to her death, had the son refused to reconvey when he did.
The contract between mother and son was in writing. The executory obligation thereof plainly guaranteed to the mother for the balance of her lifetime, not only a home to be provided by the son but also maintenance and support by the son “in the manner in which she had immediately prior hereto been accustomed.” My Brother’s opinion concedes that from some time in 1951 and until the mother’s death the son’s performance of the contract was limited to “the best of his ability” and to “such support as his means permitted.”
The chancellor concluded after hearing the testimony of the parties that the son had committed an actionable breach of this contract of life support and that the mother would have been entitled to rescission on account thereof had the son not then and there reconveyed. ' With this I agree. The record *598contains no hint or inference on which it may be said that the son “substantially” performed the contract. He agreed to support his mother, in manner to which she had previously been accustomed, and did not do so. And his continued breach did not stop there, as we shall see.
If we are to accept as “substantial” performance this “all I could do” proof, when the contract plainly requires something better, then I think we just as plainly should so advise the profession for future reference. This is not the first and it assuredly will not be the last case of deed of farm or home in return for life support that will come before us.
When the mother insisted upon and received from her son the reconveyance in question, she obtained only what she then and there was lawfully entitled to by interposition of equity. The defendants Fruehauf and Trailmobile, Inc., consequently suffered no justiciable loss on account of such reconveyance. As was said in Welsh v. Richards, 41 Mich 593 (another opinion signed by our revered leaders, Justices Cooley, Campbell, Marston and Graves) :
“The vendee may, without compelling his vendor to resort to legal measures, surrender up his contract for cancellation and yield possession of the premises. In other words, the parties may by agreement accomplish that which the law would if resorted to. * * * Where under the surrender the vendor acquires no right or advantage as against such third party, which he could not have acquired by judicial proceedings, such third party is not injured.”
This is especially so in present case, the defendants not having asked by pleading or otherwise for determination of the son’s earned equity, if any, in the subject matter.
No litigant, much less a beset old lady whose contracted right of life support is about to be jerked *599from under her feet by creditors of another, may rightfully be accused of fraud for having' taken the very steps- a competent lawyer would (and did in this case) advise her to pursue toward protection of that right. This mother had valuable equities in her homestead, stemming from the son’s past, as well as anticipatory, breach of his contract to support and maintain her and the home according to its terms. Let us turn to the record.
Mrs. Ristau, aged 73 years when she passed away January 25, 1954, suffered for years from diabetes. The disease required daily doses of insulin. The contract required of the son:
“It is further understood and agreed that said son, during the lifetime of said parent, shall furnish a physician or nurse and such medicines as may be necessary in case of sickness, and after her death shall provide her with a decent burial.”
Commencing in 1951 the son failed, utterly with respect to providing insulin for his mother with result that she was compelled to obtain what she needed through a daughter. Furthermore, and with reference to the same quoted paragraph of the contract, it is noted that the majority opinion deigns no thought or provision for payment of the mother’s funeral and burial expenses out of that which is awarded via the son to his creditors.
This is not all. When the financial and marital going really got tough for the son in 1951, the mother pitched in with washing, ironing and housework and that care for the son’s 6-year-old boy only a mother or grandmother can give. Instead of being supported after the son’s financial reverses she was in fact helping to support him and his remaining family, and she meanwhile suffered his continued breach of this additional covenant:
*600“It is also mutually agreed that the son shall pay .all taxes and special assessments assessed against the foregoing real estate, shall keep said property fully insured against damage by fire and windstorm, in policies indicating the interest of each of the parties hereto in said premises, and the son shall maintain and keep said premises in a good state of repair during the term of the natural life of the parent.”
It is on this record of fact that today’s majority brands the rightful and keenly understandable efforts of Mrs. Ristau, toward protection of her contracted security of life support and maintenance, as fraudulent. And this we do on clamored demand of creditors of her son — creditors to whom she owed nothing. I am ashamed of our decision, and suggest in that spirit that this Court of equity is caught today by the record before us with its ample maxims down. In any case of like nature, no creditors lurking in the background of course, this Court would .at least decree a lien to the mother and in turn her representative for the determined value of her rightful equities in the subject matter. Not so here, however. The winner-creditors take all.
The chancellor said, by way of conclusion of his opinion:
“In order for me to hold with the defendants in this case, it must appear that Mrs. Ristau obtained hack this deed for the sole purpose of defrauding her son’s creditors. There is too much evidence in this case of the inability of the son to carry out the provisions of the contract with his mother for me to hold that that was her purpose in obtaining this deed. If this deed was not a nullity, then it passed title to Bertha Ristau and she might convey it by will, and the defendants in this case can not complain merely because she conveyed it (by will) to her son Prank Ristau after her death.”
*601I vote to affirm with remand as follows:
Under the rule that equity having taken hold will retain for working out and composition of all presented equities and controversies, I would return this case to the chancellor for determination of the proportionate rights of mother and son (if any) in the subject matter of the 1940 contract and for authorization in favor of defendants to feed their judgments solely from that which if anything is equitably awarded to the son on such remand.
I would also award costs of this appeal to plaintiff.
Smith, J., concurred with Black, J.
The late Justice Beid took no part in the decision of this case.