## Facts

- Virgil D. Howe owned a family farm in Deerfield, Massachusetts and had severe dyslexia, slow mental processing, and a history of being easily intimidated.
- Ronald and Jeanette Palmer befriended Howe in the mid-1990s; Ronald became Howe’s primary confidant, learning Howe feared losing the farm and was in a weak financial position.
- The Palmers moved onto the farm in 1999, performed extensive cleanup, and retained sale proceeds and other funds as compensation and expenses.
- Ronald Palmer persuaded Howe that Howe owed the Palmers approximately $20,000–$25,000 for their work and that Howe needed to sell the farm or convey a half interest to satisfy the asserted debt.
- On March 7, 2000, Howe executed a deed conveying a 50% interest in the farm to Ronald and Jeanette Palmer as tenants by the entirety; the deed reserved a life estate for Howe’s wife.
- After the transfer, the Palmers ran a small ministry on the farm and arranged religious counseling and written conditions that the jury could view as mechanisms to increase Howe’s submission and loyalty.
- Howe and his wife left the farm around 2005 and reconciled; Howe filed suit on March 1, 2006 seeking rescission of the deed for undue influence and damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED).

## Issues

1. Whether sufficient evidence supported the jury’s finding that the 2000 deed was procured by undue influence, and whether the deed could remain enforceable as to one spouse’s grantee interest if only the other spouse exerted the undue influence.
2. Whether the three-year statute of limitations barred the claims, or whether the discovery rule tolled accrual because Howe did not know and reasonably should not have known of the harm until after March 1, 2003.
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support liability for IIED.

## Decision

- The Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the judgment for Howe.
- The court held the evidence supported the finding that the deed resulted from undue influence and was properly rescinded.
- The court rejected the argument that Jeanette Palmer’s interest could survive if Ronald Palmer alone exercised undue influence; the conveyance was treated as tainted as a whole.
- The court held the claims were not time-barred because the jury could properly find, under the discovery rule, that Howe did not and should not have discovered the harm before March 1, 2003, and did not unreasonably delay suit.
- The court held the evidence warranted the jury’s verdict for Howe on IIED and upheld the $60,000 emotional-distress award (plus interest and costs).

## Legal Principles

- Undue influence in a property transfer includes coercion—physical, mental, or moral—that subverts independent judgment and destroys the grantor’s free will.
- A confidential or trust-based relationship, combined with a grantor’s cognitive or emotional vulnerability and the grantee’s manipulation and self-interested pressure, can support an inference of undue influence.
- A deed procured by undue influence is voidable at the instance of the influenced grantor; where co-grantees participated in and benefited from the tainted transaction, the conveyance is not preserved for one grantee as severable and enforceable.
- Under Massachusetts’ discovery rule, limitations may be tolled until the plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known of the harm; a defendant’s undue influence that convinces the plaintiff the transaction was correct can delay accrual until the plaintiff is free of that influence and can perceive the injury.
- IIED requires intentional or reckless conduct that is extreme and outrageous, causation, and severe emotional distress; exploiting a vulnerable person through sustained manipulation and control can satisfy the standard.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed rescission of a deed conveying half of Howe’s farm because the jury could find the Palmers exploited Howe’s vulnerability and a trust relationship to overcome his free will, and it upheld both tolling under the discovery rule where undue influence delayed awareness of harm and the jury’s IIED verdict and damages award.


Howe v. Palmer, 80 Mass. App. Ct. 736, 956 N.E.2d 249 (2011)