## Facts

- Virgil A. Steffes lived on a farm and died intestate in 1976, leaving a substantial estate.
- Mary Lou Brooks left a paid job and moved into Steffes’s farm home, where she lived for years until his death.
- Brooks and Steffes had an affectionate relationship that included sexual intercourse; they were not married, and the relationship was adulterous.
- During the last years of Steffes’s life—especially as his health declined—Brooks performed extensive services connected to the home and farm, including cooking and housekeeping, work related to livestock and farm operations, and intimate nursing care.
- Steffes relied on Brooks to continue providing these services, and evidence showed he expected her to keep doing so as his condition worsened.
- Steffes sometimes gave Brooks cash and gifts and made statements indicating he wanted to pay her for what she did, but there was no written contract.
- After Steffes died, Brooks asked Terry V. Steffes (Virgil’s son and the personal representative of the estate) for a small portion of the estate; when he refused, Brooks pursued a claim for compensation.
- Brooks filed a probate claim seeking $29,200 for personal services provided during the two years immediately preceding Steffes’s death.
- The trial court found Brooks had proved compensable services and allowed the claim in the reduced amount of $14,600.
- The personal representative appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether a person who cohabited with the decedent in an adulterous relationship may recover from the decedent’s estate for unpaid compensation for nonsexual personal services rendered during the two years before death.
2. Whether the presumption that services rendered by a member of a household are gratuitous barred recovery absent an express promise to pay.
3. Whether the evidence supported the trial court’s finding that the services were rendered at the decedent’s request or with his knowledge and with an expectation of compensation, so that an implied agreement or quantum meruit recovery was proper.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment allowing Brooks’s claim in the amount of $14,600.
- The court held that Brooks was not barred from recovery merely because her relationship with Steffes included an adulterous sexual relationship, where the claim was for ordinary domestic, farm, and nursing services rather than sexual services.
- The court concluded the record supported findings that Steffes accepted and relied on Brooks’s services and that the circumstances supported an expectation of compensation, permitting recovery on an implied-in-fact agreement and/or quantum meruit theory.
- The court rejected the argument that household-membership required proof of an express promise to pay in order to overcome the presumption of gratuitous services, treating the presumption as one that can be rebutted by the surrounding facts.

## Legal Principles

- A claimant may recover from an estate for the reasonable value of services when the decedent requested the services or knowingly accepted them under circumstances showing an expectation of payment.
- The presumption that services performed within a household are gratuitous is rebuttable; evidence of the parties’ conduct and understanding may show an implied promise to compensate.
- Cohabitation, even where the relationship is adulterous, does not by itself make an agreement unenforceable or bar recovery for nonsexual services; public policy bars enforcement only when the claimed consideration is expressly and explicitly sexual.
- A probate claim for compensation may be supported by proof of an implied-in-fact agreement or by quantum meruit when the claimant shows services, acceptance, and a reasonable basis for compensation.

## Conclusion

The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed an award to Mary Lou Brooks against Virgil Steffes’s estate for domestic, farm, and nursing services performed during the two years before his death, holding that the services were compensable under implied agreement and/or quantum meruit principles and that the adulterous nature of the parties’ relationship did not bar recovery where the claim was not based on sexual services and the evidence rebutted any presumption of gratuitous household labor.


In the Matter of the Estate of Steffes, 290 N.W.2d 697 (1980)