HIEBLE v. HIEBLE Supre Court of Connecticut, 1972, 164 Conn.56, 316 A.2d 777
SHAPIRO, J.
Fact:
Plaintiff transferred the title of her real estate by survivorship deed to her son(defendant) and to daughter. She had malignant cancer surgery that year and made a verbal promise with her son and daughter that the transfer of the property is temporary and that she would manage it as she is now after the transfer. After the transfer, plaintiff reside on the property continuously with her aged mother, son and daughter. In 1960, the daughter agreed to relinquish her interest in the property as plaintiff expressed displeasure on her marriage. A deed was prepared, and the daughter and son transferred title to the land to the plaintiff and her son in survivorship. Five years later, the plaintiff requested her to reconvey her real property since she considered herself out of risk of a recurrence of cancer. The defendant procrastinated, feigning concern about the boundaries of a land. Thereafter, the defendant assured the plaintiff that he would never marry but would continue to live with her. These were his reasons for refusing reconveyance until his marriage plans were disclosed. Although the plaintiff proposed that her son could keep the property if he remained single, the son married and moved out of the house. After she failed to reconveyance of her estate, she bought a suit. (During the entire period of litigation, she bore all the expense of improvement to the property.)
Issue:
Whether equity court should impose a constructive trust where a done who by deed has received realty under an oral promise to hold and reconvey to the grantor has refused to perform his promise.
Rule:
Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, 205, cited in Fisk's Appeal, supra, 440
it is unnecessary to find fraudulent intent for the imposition of a constructive trust.
§ 44 of the Restatement (Second) of Trusts
Where the owner of an interest in land transfers it inter vivos to another in trust for the transferor, but no memorandum properly evidencing the intention to create a trust is signed, as required by the Statute of Frauds, and the transferee refuses to perform the trust, the transferee holds the interest upon a constructive trust for the transferor, if ... (b) the transferee at the time of the transfer was in a confidential relation to the transferor."
Application:
Defendant argued that a court of equity should not recognize a relationship of confidentiality between plaintiff and defendant because plaintiff initiated the transfer and she is aged, and because he was an inexperienced young man. But the court grant the bond between parent and child is not per se a fiduciary one and considered that it generates a natural inclination to repose great confidence and trust. Defendant had agreed to reconvey the property to the plaintiff upon request and the conclusion of the court, amply supported by the finding of fact that a confidential relationship existed between the plaintiff and defendant. Defendant questioned the sufficiency of the evidence to justify the imposition of a constructive trust. Since he did not attack the finding that there was an underlying “oral agreement”, he cannot question the sufficiency.
Conclusion:
There is no error. The court found no error in the trial court’s refusal to impose a constructive trust on the basis of a confidential relationship.