Sturges v. Taylor

Full title: STURGES v. TAYLOR.

Court: COURT OF CHANCERY OF NEW JERSEY

Date published: Sep 18, 1890

20 A. 369 (Ch. Div. 1890)

Opinion

09-18-1890

STURGES v. TAYLOR.

Abel I. Smith and Mr. Collins, for complainant. Mr. Minturn and Mr. Newbold, for defendant.

STEVENS, Adv. M.

Abel I. Smith and Mr. Collins, for complainant. Mr. Minturn and Mr. Newbold, for defendant.

STEVENS, Adv. M. The bill is filed by the complainant for the specific performance of a parol contract to devise to complainant two adjoining lots situate in Washington street, Hoboken. This contract is alleged to have been made with the complainant by one Martha Robinson, in her life-time; the action being brought against the defendant, John H. Taylor, her son by her first husband, as her sole heir at law. The consideration of the contract is alleged to have been personal services rendered the deceased for the last 12 years of her life. In order to a clear understanding of the case it will be necessary to give an account of the persons principally involved in it. The complainant is the wife of John Sturges, and is now about 36 years of age. When 10 years old she was brought by her mother to Martha Robinson, who took her as a servant. Mrs. Robinson's second husband was then a hack driver in Hoboken, and he and his wife appear to have accumulated considerable property. Mrs. Robinson was, at the time she took Kate into her employ, about 72 years old. Kate testifies that her earliest services consisted in washing dishes, making beds, feeding horses, and cleaning. As she grew older, in addition to these duties, she took care of Mrs. Robinson's person, combing her hair, dressing her, and preparing her food. When she was about 21 she married John Sturges, the wedding taking place on March 4, 1874. At that time Mrs. Robinson was 83 years old. After her marriage, and because, as she alleges, of the promise on which the present action is based, she still continued to remain with and take care of Mrs. Robinson until her death, in September, 1886, at the advanced age of 95. Mrs. Robinson, from the testimony, appears to have been a somewhat remarkable woman for her station in life. She could neither read nor write, but up to within a few weeks of her death she possessed considerable bodily vigor, and, with unimpaired mind, continued to transact her business affairs and attend to her social and religious duties as she had been doing for years previous. She owned or had a life-interest in several tenement houses, and she personally attended to the collecting of rents from the tenants to the last. Repairs to the properties were made under her supervision. Some of the witnesses state that only three or four weeks before she died she could be seen sweeping her yard, and otherwise exercising a supervision over her property. She appears to have been of a social disposition. She frequently engaged in friendly talks with her tenants, seeing them in their rooms, and her own. Up to within two or three years of her death, she regularly attended, summer and winter, the meetings of a temperance lodge, held in the evening, at some distance from her house, often remaining there until 11 or 12 o'clock at night, and sometimes walking, sometimes taking the horse-cars on her way to and from the place of assembly. She appears to have been most regular in her attendance at the Methodist Church. She went to the morning and evening service, and occasionally to a prayer meeting held during the week. She was but rarely confined to her house by sickness. Her physician, Dr. Fisher, gives this description of her as she appeared when 92 years old: "She was tall, erect, had false teeth, dark hair, face very much wrinkled; looked like an old woman, but yet a vigorous old woman." He says she did not walk actively; that of course she was feeble, but that still for her age she was strong. She walked without a cane to the last. A great deal of the evidence in the case—in fact a disproportionate part of it—was directed to the point whether for the last 20 years or more of her life she was afflicted with a chronic falling of the womb, coupled with incontinence of the urine. On the part of the complainant it was insisted that she had this complaint in an aggravated form, the object of the evidence being to magnify the service rendered, and to show that it bore some proportion to the promised reward, while on the part of the defendant the existence of the malady was altogether denied. I will dismiss this part of the case with the remark that in my opinion the trouble existed in a mild form, and that it necessitated some additional and unpleasant work on the part of the complainant, but that it was not of such a character as to call for the skill of a trained nurse, and that its presence did not manifest itself in such manner as to apparently impair her bodily or mental vigor. Three physicians were called on the part of the complainant. They had all attended Mrs. Robinson, and not one even knew of its existence. The only doctor who is said to have prescribed for the trouble is dead. The defendant was Mrs. Robinson's only child. He took charge of the hack business after his step-father's death, which occurred several years before the complainant's marriage. He added to it an undertaker's business. There was an effort to show that he neglected his mother, and that there existed some degree of coldness between them. I do not think the evidence has established this. He lived and had his business near her. They saw each other daily, unless he was absent from home. She exacted from hima strict compliance with his business engagements, but she appears to have regarded him with such affection as a mother would be likely to entertain for an only son. From her various tenants, Mrs. Robinson received from '$200 to $300 per month. The Hoboken properties (except the one which is the subject of controversy in this suit) had been conveyed to herself and her husband for life only, with remainder to her son. She had, in addition, four lots in Jersey City, the value of which does not appear, and some money in the savings bank. This was all she had, so far as the evidence shows, except the property in controversy in this suit, which had been conveyed to her in fee by the trustees of the Widows' Home on July 11, 1873, for the consideration of $12,500. It consisted of two lots fronting on Washington street, on one of which stood a frame dwelling. The other was vacant. It was called the "Widows' Home Property," not, so far as the evidence shows, because the house had been used as a home for widows, but because it had been held by the trustees of the Widows' Home. An ineffectual effort was made by the defendant to show that this property had been purchased with the son's money, and that Mrs. Robinson held it in trust for him. It is, however, quite clear that Mrs. Robinson held it in her own right, free of any trust, and could have disposed of it as she saw fit.

I have been thus particular in stating the position in which the parties stood to the property, and to each other, because, in view of the direct and painful conflict of testimony, the probability or improbability of the fact alleged must enter very largely into the determination of the controversy. There is but one witness who testifies directly to the making of the contract, and that witness is the husband of complainant. He is 50 years old, and the son of a former judge of the Hudson common pleas. He is a man of intelligence, but has led a somewhat desultory life. He first engaged in the oyster business; then went to Virginia, where he remained from 1856 to 1865. During the war he was engaged in the Confederate service, and at its close he went into the United States navy. Then he returned home and took care of his father until his death, in 1875. After that he took care of his mother's place, working in her garden, and performing such other services as she required, until 1885, when she also died. For this gardening she allowed him from $12 to $15 a week in the summer time, and gave him some money on other occasions. He likewise, during the period between 1870 and the death of Mrs. Robinson, in 1886, served for two summers as policeman in the Schuetzen park; occasionally sailed a yacht; acted as an officer in a pool room, and served for three years as a constable. His father left considerable property, which, with the other children, he inherited at his mother's death. At the time of his marriage he was entirely dependent upon his own exertions for support. He first met the complainant in 1872. He married her on March 4, 1874. Just before the ceremony, he went to the house of Mrs. Robinson, where the complainant was, and this is his account of what took place: "I went in there in the evening, under a previous arrangement with my wife now, to get married on that night. I sat in a room on a sofa in there. Mrs. Robinson sat near the window in a chair. My wife was standing up in the room. Mrs. Robinson was crying at the time, and I asked my wife, 'What is the matter with Mrs. Robinson?' and she says, 'I don't know;' and Mrs. Robinson got up, and came over to me on the sofa, and she says: 'I have got a request to ask of you,—a favor; will you grant it?' I says, 'It depends on what it is.' 'Well,' she says, 'Katie has lived with me so long that I can't part with her, and,' she says, 'if you will leave her stay with me as long as I live,' she says, 'when I die I will leave her the Widows' Home property,' and she explained this property to me. She says, 'All this property here, this house, and all below here, as far as Jordan,' I did not know Jordan, where he lived, 'that property belonged to Robinson and myself, and that,' she says 'will go to my son when I die; but the Widows' Home property I have bought since Mr. Robinson's death, and it is mine to do with as I please, and that,' she says, 'I will give to Katie when I die.' I says,' That lays entirely with Kate.' I says, 'Whatever she says I am satisfied with, 'and then she asked her to do it, and she says, 'Yes.' Question. Asked her what? Answer. If she would stay with her as long as she lived, and she says,' Yes; I will, Mrs. Robinson.' Q. Did she say anything as you remember about taking care of her? A My wife did. Q. Mrs. Robinson? A. She said she had been there and taken care of her, and she could not live without her. It was necessary to have her there to take care of her. And she said if she would stay with her as long as she lived, and do what she was doing, she would give her that Widows' Home property. That belonged to her to do as she pleased with, and my wife said she would do so,—do as she had always done; and Mrs. Robinson says, 'You won't go back on your word;' and my wife—she was not my wife then —she says, 'No, I won't; I will stand by my agreement,' and Mrs. Robinson said, 'And so will I,' and she shook her by the hand, and shook me by the hand, and we all shook hands, and then she got up, arid my wife dressed her, and she went with us to Central avenue, I believe, and we got married." After the marriage, the party went to the house of Mrs. Travers, complainant's sister, where they had supper. After that they returned to Mrs. Robinson's house. The complainant remained with Mrs. Robinson, continuously, up to the day of her death. The complainant's husband, for the first two years after the marriage, spent two or three nights at Mrs. Robinson's house, living with his father the rest of the time. After his father's death; he lived with his wife at Mrs. Robinson's. On the morning after the marriage, Mrs. Travers, complainant's sister, says she went to Mrs. Robinson's house to call. There she found Kate combing Mrs. Robinson's hair as usual. She testifies that she said to Mrs. Robinson:"What will you do after Kate goes away about your hair? Who will fix your hair for you?" to which Mrs. Robinson replied, "Kate is not going to leave me. Kate is going to stay with me, and she promised me she would stay with me as long as she lives, and I have given Kate the Widows' Home. I have given Kate the Widows' Home, but she will not get it before my death. She says, 'You talk too much, and I don't want you to say anything that will get to John's (her son's) ears, because,' she says, 'if John knew that I gave Kate the Widows' Home he would kill me.'" Another witness called to prove the agreement was Eunice Telfer, a sister of the complainant's husband. She testifies to a conversation had with Mrs. Robinson about two or three years before Mrs. Robinson's death. She says Mrs. Robinson told her she had been sick all the winter; that her son had not been to see her since she had been sick; that Katie waited on her night and day. "She bought the Widows' Home, and she told me what she paid for it. And that, she said, was for Kate; for Kate, if she had been her own daughter, could not do more for her than what she did." Sarah A. Henderson, a woman who nursed Kate when her second child was born, testified that Mrs. Robinson said to her, on one occasion, "that if she died before Kate, Kate was all right, for the Widows' Home belonged to her;" and Mrs. Blumensteil testifies that she said to her, "Oh, wait until I am dead; you will get everything." The complainant offered herself as a witness to prove the contract, but, objection being made, did not testify on that subject. This comprised all the evidence to prove the agreement offered on the part of the complainant in her principal case. Standing by itself, it seems to establish quite clearly the existence of the contract alleged in the bill.

The other evidence showed what services she had rendered, and how she had performed them. There is no doubt but that they were performed to the entire satisfaction of Mrs. Robinson. This latter branch of the controversy is clearly established by the evidence. The real controversy is not whether Kate rendered the service, but whether she rendered it under the agreement alleged in her bill. As alleged and proved, it is merely a parol agreement. It is said to have been entered into by Mrs. Robinson and the complainant in the presence of complainant's husband alone. He testifies to its terms after a lapse' of 15 years. No note or memorandum of it was made by either party. It would be within the operation of the statute of frauds were it not for the part performance. The case is evidently one which, to quote from the opinion of the court of errors, in Ackerman v. Ackerman's Ex'rs, 24 N. J. Eq. 587, "calls for no relaxation of the well-settled rules of equity." That court then proceeds to state the rule in such cases. It says: "The proof of the contract should be clear, and the acts of the claimant referable alone to the contract." Does the present case conform to these two requisites, and first to the latter? It is said in Fry on Specific Performance, (*176:) "To make the acts of part performance effective to take the agreement out of the statute of frauds, they must be such as cannot be referred to any other title, than such an agreement as that alleged, nor have been done with any other view or design than to perform such agreement; therefore, where a tenant in possession sued for the specific performance of an alleged agreement for a lease, and set up his possession as an act of part performance of the agreement, it was held not to be such, because it was referable to his character as tenant." On this principle, I presume, if Kate had continued to serve Mrs. Robinson as an unmarried woman and set up an agreement like the present, she could not have succeeded, because her acts might well have been referred to her former agreement of service. Conceding that the fact of her marriage, however, necessitated a new contract, it is apparent that this contract, so far as it related to the service to be performed, might be, and in the present case actually was, precisely the same as the former one. "She was to do as she had always done." It differed only in the character of the consideration which Mrs. Robinson was to give for the service, and in the fact that it called for the consent and approbation of the husband. Assuming that the so circumstances are sufficient to distinguish the case from that of the tenant, and that they take it out of the operation of the statute, I am unable to reach the conclusion that the proof of the contract is clear, on the evidence regarded as an entirety.

The defendant's evidence in disproof of the alleged agreement is necessarily circumstantial. It consists, in the first place, of declarations of the complainant herself, inconsistent with the expectation on her part that she would succeed to the property at Mrs. Robinson's death. Mrs. Jefferson, a colored witness of some intelligence, a tenant of Mrs. Robinson, testifies that 'Mrs. Sturges, on one occasion, said to her: "Poor Billie [a grandson of Mrs. Robinson] has been in here, and wanted his mother to give the Widows' Home for him and his wife. Don't you think she is mean not to do it?" To which Mrs. Robinson replied: "Hush up, Kate, I am not going to do it. I may want it before I die. and I don't know how long I will live, and when I am dead my son John will get all my property." Mrs. Taylor, the wife of the defendant, says that Mrs. Sturges told her frequently: "If it had not been for John Taylor, Will, your son, would have had the Widows' Home." Mrs. Cable, a witness, however, on whose testimony I am not disposed to place much reliance, says that she heard Mrs. Sturges say that the father (John H. Taylor) would not let the old lady give it to William, (his son.) William Taylor himself says that Mrs. Sturges told him a number of times that his grandmother ought to give him the Widows' Home. All these conversations took place after the date of the alleged contract, and before Mrs. Robinson's death. They are not absolutely inconsistent with its existence, for we could suppose that they were intended to put the family of the defendant off their guardwith reference to Mrs. Robinson's real intentions in reference to the property. But this supposition would put the complainant in the attitude of one who was practicing deceit. There is nothing in the proofs to give countenance to this idea, and the complainant herself denies that she ever made the declarations imputed to her. There is also testimony of declarations made by Mrs. Robinson, in complainant's presence, inconsistent with the existence of the alleged contract. Thus William Taylor further testifies that in September or October, 1874, six months after the alleged contract had been entered into, he asked his grandmother if she was going to give him the Widows' Home, and she replied that she might want it herself before she died. To Mrs. Jefferson she said, as already stated, that when she was dead her son John would get all her property. The conversation was about the Widows' Home. George C. Stevens, an employe of the defendant, testifies that, while in the employ of the telephone company, and about three years before her death, he went to her to get permission to take a telephone wire over the Widows' Home. Among other things, Mrs. Robinson said to him, in Kate's presence: "I sent you to my son before, and you will have to go to my son now, because 1 have only one child, and when I die all my property will go to him." This is all the evidence of declarations.

In the second place the defendant produces an affidavit of the complainant made about nine months after Mrs. Robinson's death. It appears that Mrs. Sturges put in a claim, under oath, against Mrs. Robinson's estate for $9,000. She therein swore that the estate owed her that amount of money for services rendered Mrs. Robinson from the time of her marriage to the time of Mrs. Robinson's death. If this affidavit be true, the complainant has no case. But she was permitted to explain the circumstances under which she made it. The bill in this case was filed April 5, 1887. On June 30, 1887, having been sent for, she went to the office of Smith & Mabon. Mr. Smith was absent, but she was directed by Mr. Mabon, his partner, to sign the paper for safety, so that, as she expresses it, if she couldn't get this contract with Mrs. Robinson, she would have something to fall back on. She says the paper was read over to her, and she understood it As it was sworn to after the bill was filed, I am not disposed to give it a conclusive effect. This present suit could not, under such circumstances, be regarded as an afterthought. Clients will sometimes, on advice of counsel, sign papers without much consideration of their real import: and, in this case, Mr. Mabon could scarcely have realized what a complete answer he was himself furnishing to his own client's case if the affidavit which he drew should be accepted as the truth. Her action in swearing to the paper may have been improper, but the paper cannot operate as an estoppel precluding her from showing the truth.

There are other circumstances to which I give more weight, and these appear to me to be fatal to the complainant's case. The deed for the Widows' Home property was delivered in July or August, 1873. It is an admitted fact that very shortly after the property was purchased, the defendant, with his mother's consent, commenced to improve it with his own money. These improvements were made chiefly in the years 1874, 1875, and 1876, and they were made in entire ignorance of the existence of the alleged agreement. As I have already stated, there were two lots, one vacant, and the other built upon. On the vacant lot, Mr. Taylor erected a large brick stable, at a cost, he says, of seven or eight thousand dollars. He likewise altered the frame house at a cost of two or three thousand dollars. He testified that he spent so much money on these improvements that he became temporarily embarrassed. They were all made within two or three doors of where Mrs. Robinson and Mr. and Mrs. Sturges were living. Mr. Sturges testifies that he asked Mrs. Robinson to allow her son to build, but he admits that he never so much as intimated to that son that his wife had an agreement by which, if Mrs. Robinson, then about 85 or 86 years old, should die, she alone would get the benefit of Mr. Taylor's outlay. Mr. Sturges says, it is true, in one part of his testimony that, while he did not say anything about the agreement to Taylor, he "thought probably she [Mrs. Robinson] had told him all about it." But he could not have thought so. He could not have supposed that Taylor would be so foolish as to involve himself in pecuniary embarrassment for the purpose of erecting expensive improvements upon a property which would very soon after, if not before, these improvements were completed pass into the hands of his wife, the complainant. By allowing Taylor to build under these circumstances, complainant and her husband would, had the alleged agreement existed, have been guilty of that suppressio veri, which law and morality alike unite to characterize as fraudulent. Their conduct in this regard is more consistent with the non-existence than with the existence of the contract which they now set up. If this be true of them, it is far more so of Mrs. Robinson. Is it likely that she would be a party to a fraud upon her son? Would she, a capable business woman, conscientious as the proof shows her to have been, loving her only son as she did, first promise this property to Kate, and immediately afterwards encourage the defendant in expending $10,000 upon the property so promised, in the belief that it would go to him at her death, when she knew that her days would soon be numbered, and that when she was dead his expenditures would redound solely to Kate's benefit? It was argued that Mrs. Robinson regarded Kate as a daughter, and that hence she gave her more than she would have given a mere servant. Even if this were true, she could not have justified herself in allowing her son to labor under a false impression, to his great and lasting injury. But there is little in the evidence to warant the inference that she regarded Kate as a daughter She had always imposed upon her laborious menial work. She had given her no education,and even on the occasion of her wedding, so far as the evidence shows, for a past service of 11 years, the only present she made her was, if we are to credit Mrs. Travers, a case of porter. I have no doubt that she regarded Kate as necessary to her comfort, and that Kate served her faithfully, but the relationship between them was ever that of employer and employe, and not that of mother and adopted daughter.

But the argument is, the evidence points to an agreement, and, if not to the agreement alleged, then to what other? The change of a word or two would alter the entire character of the agreement. That Mrs. Robinson strongly urged Kate to remain is probable; that, in view of Kate's changed circumstances, she would have to offer sufficient inducement is also probable; so she might well begin the conversation by telling Mr. Sturges that in most of the property she had only a life-interest, but that in the Widows' Home her title was absolute; that it was hers, to do with as she pleased. She may have added: "If you will stay with me, I will pay you out, of it," not with it. In other words, she might have promised compensation, and, for the purpose of inducing Mr. Sturges, who as a business man would take a business view of the situation, to accede to her request, she might have indicated the source from which that compensation could in any event be obtained. It would not be singular if, after a lapse of 15 years, the complainant and her husband should have convinced themselves that the promise was to pay with the Widow's' Home, and not out of it. This conjecture does not relieve the case of all its difficulties. It does not harmonize with the evidence of Mrs. Telfer, nor with the conversation which Mr. Sturges detailed in his rebutting testimony as occurring when, in 1876, she gave him the deed for record. But it seems to be more consistent with the whole evidence than any other hypothesis. It is consistent, for instance, with the important circumstance that Mrs. Robinson, in fact, never made a will, and was never asked to do so by either Mr. or Mrs. Sturges. They do not appear to me to be people who would have been restrained by motives of delicacy in respect of a matter of so much moment to them, though, indeed, on the theory that there was a contract to leave the property, based on adequate consideration, I do not think it was a matter of delicacy at all, as a will was essential to its performance; but it was quite immaterial if the agreement were to make compensation merely. It would likewise be consistent with the declarations testified to as having been made by Mrs. Sturges and Mrs. Robinson; and, more than all, it would explain a fact which I will now proceed to mention, quite inexplicable on any other theory. It appears that on June 29, 1886, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Sturges went to the Hoboken Savings Bank; that Mrs. Robinson drew from her account $3,000, and handed in to Mrs. Sturges; that Mrs. Sturges immediately redeposited it in her own name. Two opposite versions of this transaction have been testified to,—one by Mr. Sturges, and one by Mrs. Jefferson. Mr. Sturges' version is as follows: "I opened the door for them to come in [on their return from the bank.] My wife took her [Mrs. Robinson] up-stairs, and undressed her, and they came down again, I says: 'You have been out?' 'Yes,' she says, 'we have been down to the bank, and I have made Kate a present of $3,000 of money, but that has nothing to do with the agreement I made with Kate on the night she got married,— has nothing to do with that.' And she cautioned me, at the time, to say nothing to anybody,—my wife and myself,—as it might make trouble for her." And in reference to this caution he says, on cross-examination: "I thought she wanted us to keep quiet about the whole business; that is the way I took it." This was in answer to a question as to whether he understood from her remark that she was keeping secret the contract about the Widows' Home. He had before testified, as I have already had occasion to remark, that he thought probably Mrs. Robinson had told her son all about it. On the other hand, Mrs. Jefferson gives this account of the payment. "I went down the next day [that is, the day after they had been to the bank] to Mrs. Robinson's house, and Mrs. Robinson was sitting on the sofa, and Mrs. Sturges was sitting in the kitchen, and she said: 'Go in, Mrs. Robinson is in on the sofa.' I went in to see Mrs. Robinson, and Mrs. Sturges came in too, and said: 'Mrs. Jefferson, Mrs. Robinson has given me $3,000.' I made Mrs. Sturges answer, 'Mrs. Sturges, I always told you Mrs. Robinson would give you something, 'and Mrs. Sturges smiled and said,' Yes; isn't that nice?' and Mrs. Robinson made the answer to Mrs. Sturges, 'Yes, Kate, I have paid you for all you have done for me.'"

The fact that Kate got $3,000 eleven years after her marriage is undisputed. The problem for solution is, was it given as a pure gratuity, or as a payment of a debt? It seems to me almost incredible that Mrs. Robinson should have given this money as a pure gratuity, intending that Kate should have the Widows' Home property besides. I have already stated that the services rendered were such as might have been rendered by an intelligent servant; that they did not require the skill of a trained nurse; and I have also stated that it does not satisfactorily appear that the relationship of the parties was other than a contractual one. Kate may, under the peculiar circumstances of her position, have expected and deserved greater compensation than is ordinarily given, even to a capable domestic. Three hundred dollars a year would be nearly double the sum ordinarily paid, and even that sum would amount in 12 years only to $3,600; but if there was a contract, such as the complainant states there was, she has become entitled to a property which, with the improvements placed upon it, cost $23,000 or $24,000; a property worth, perhaps, by reason of such improvements, $8,000 or $10,000 more than it was worth at the time the contract was made. And Mrs. Robinson, not satisfied with giving her this, actually makes her a present of $3.000 more, although in BO doing she gives tostranger in blood much the larger part of her own estate. I cannot believe that a woman situated as Mrs. Robinson was would do this, and I am therefore constrained to think that the $3,000 was paid in discharge of a debt. Counsel in the argument were so impressed with the apparent disproportion between the service agreed to be rendered and the promised reward that they suggested that the court might construe the contract as giving only what they called the" Widows' Home proper," viz., the lot with the house on it. The bill, however, claims the whole property, and it conforms in this regard to Mr. Sturges' testimony given as well in the principal case as in the rebuttal. Mr. Sturges, on being recalled, after the suggestion had been made, testified to a conversation had with Mrs. Robinson in May, 1876, at the time the deed was recorded. In this conversation he reports her as saying: "You can have the deed recorded [i. e., the deed conveying the entire property] if you are a mind to, for it will be Kate's when I am gone, anyhow."

Notwithstanding the able, earnest, and exhaustive argument made on behalf of the complainant, I am constrained to advise a dismissal of the bill. I think this result, so far from being inequitable in the result, will rather remit the parties to their true forum, and will enable Mrs. Sturges, if she has not received what she is entitled to, to obtain, from a jury, in the suit at law already commenced by her, just, but not excessive, compensation for all that she has done.