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178 Mass. 247

Hoseason v. Keegen

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1901-03-02

<p>A bill in equity by an executrix, seeking a reconveyance of certain real estate con? veyed to the defendant by the plaintiff’s testatrix, alleged that, such testatrix being unable to write her name, the defendant induced her to affix her mark to a deed of the property in question by a representation that it was a merely formal matter, saying to her “ I want you to sign this paper. It does n’t amount to anything,” and that the plaintiff’s testatrix executed the instrument, believing that by so doing she was not conveying away any right in her property. After a hearing on the merits, the bill was dismissed by a final decree not appealed from. Subsequently, by a second bill in equity, the same plaintiff sought from the same defendant a reconveyance of the same property, alleging that the plaintiff’s testatrix, being seventy years of age, unable to read or write and of failing mind, formerly lived with the defendant, the husband of her daughter since deceased, that after her daughter’s death the plaintiff’s testatrix determined to live with the plaintiff, and that thereupon the defendant by his inducement, persuasion and undue influence procured her assent to the conveyance of the property to him without consideration, and that the conveyance was not the free act of the plaintiff's testatrix but was the will and act of the defendant. To this second bill the defendant pleaded res judicata, setting up the decree dismissing the plaintiff’s first bill. Held, that the plea was good and the decree a bar to the plaintiff’s second bill; that the two bills were genetically for the same alleged grievance, namely, that the plaintiff’s testatrix was given by the defendant an improperly created motive for making the conveyance to him, and differed only in the statement of the motive, and the plaintiff was bound to bring forward in support of her first bill all the matters stated in her second bill.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““The object and petitory conclusions of both suits are the-same: to annul the effects of the same deed by a reconveyance. Gillespie v. Russel, 3 Macq. 757, 760. It is true that the-ground on which the recovery now is sought differs somewhat from that formerly alleged; but so far as appears, both bills go on generically the same footing, that Mary McLaughlin was given an improperly created motive for action by the defendant, and differ only as to what the motive was.” Barnes v. Huntley, 188 Mass. 274 , 74 N. E. 318 .”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Moehlenpah v. Mayhew

Relies on Philip Werlein v. City of New Orleans · O'Donnell v. Inhabitants of Clinton · State v. Brown

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1901-03-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 1968

2 federal appellate · 2 district · 9 state decisions

501901191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Holmes, C. J.

¶1This is a bill in equity seeking to compel a conveyance of certain land from the defendant to the plaintiff on the ground that the defendant obtained the conveyance to himself without consideration by undue influence exercised over one Mary McLaughlin, the owner, of whom the plaintiff is the executrix and residuary devisee. The defendant pleads a former adjudication upon a bill, brought by Mary McLaughlin and carried on by the present plaintiff after Mary McLaughlin’s death, in which it was alleged that the defendant obtained the same *250deed by a fraudulent statement that it did not amount to anything, Mary McLaughlin being unable to read it, in which it was prayed that the defendant be ordered to release any interest conveyed by the same. This lormer bill, it is alleged, was dismissed on the merits. The Superior Court. sustained the foregoing plea and dismissed the present bill. The plaintiff appeals.

¶2We are of opinion that the decree of the Superior Court was right. The object and “ petitory conclusions ” of both suits are the same: to annul the effects of the same deed by a reconveyance. Gillespie v. Russel, 3 Macq. 757, 760. It is. true that the ground on which the reconveyance now is sought differs somewhat from that formerly alleged. But, so far as appears, both bills go on generically the same footing, that Mary McLaughlin was given an improperly created motive for action by the defendant, and differ only as to what the motive was. It does not appear that the fraudulent statement alleged in the first bill went to the nature and identity of the instrument so as to raise a question whether Mary McLaughlin might not have denied it to be her deed; O'Donnell v. Clinton, 145 Mass. 461, 462, 463 ; on the contrary the statement on its face, as set forth, dealt only with the importance of the transaction, a consideration which could affect only motives. The undue influence alleged in the present bill of course concerns motives alone. Fairbanks v. Snow, 145 Mass. 153, 154.

¶3Again it does not appear that the plaintiff did not have all the knowledge at the time of bringing her former bill that she now has. If she had, we should hesitate to admit that she would not have been barred even if the former bill had distinctly alleged a misrepresentation as to the nature of the instrument which Mary McLaughlin signed, and thus had alleged what in Scotland would be called a different medium concludendi. If the two grounds then should be regarded as inconsistent, there might be a question as to the propriety of allowing a plaintiff to speculate upon alternative and irreconcilable statements of fact. If they still would be consistent the plaintiff properly might be held bound to bring forward all her grounds of attack at once. See Wildman v. Wildman, 70 Conn. 700, 710. But see Phosphate Sewage Co. v. Molleson, 5 Ct. of Sess. Cas. *251(4th ser.) 1125,1139. But however it might be in the different case supposed, we think it entirely plain on the case as it stands and as we have stated it, that the plaintiff was bound to bring forward in the former case all grounds of a similar nature, or, in other words, all matters of improperly created motive which she might have for setting aside this deed. Phosphate Sewage Co. v. Molleson, 4 App. Cas. 801. Henderson v. Henderson, 3 Hare, 100, 115. Werlein v. New Orleans, 177 U. S. 390. Sayers v. Auditor General, 124 Mich. 259. Foster v. Hinson, 76 Iowa, 714, 720. State v. Brown, 64 Md. 199. Boyd v. Boyd, 53 App. Div. (N. Y.) 152, 159.

¶4 Beeree affirmed.

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