Korn v. Ex'r of Becker

• Decision Date: 31 October 1885
• Citation: 4 A. 434,40 N.J.E. 408
• Parties: KORN v. EXECUTOR OF BECKER, Deceased.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

4 A. 434

40 N.J.E. 408

KORN

v. EXECUTOR OF BECKER, Deceased.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

October Term, 1885.

On final hearing on bill and answer, and proofs taken in open court.

Carl Lentz, for complainant.

F. E. Marsh, for defendant.

VAN FLEET, V. C. This suit is brought to procure a decree declaring a release executed by the complainant to the defendant's testatrix inoperative and void. The defendant's testatrix was the guardian of the complainant under an appointment made by the orphans' court of Essex county on the eighteenth day of February, 1868. She was also the complainant's mother. As guardian of the complainant, she received, about the date of her appointment, $2,467. The complainant attained her majority on the twenty-first day of September, 1882. She had married two years previous, when about 19 years of age. In March, 1883, the complainant employed counsel to take proceedings against her guardian to compel her to account and pay her what she was entitled to. A citation requiring the guardian to account, returnable April 10, 1883, was taken out and served. Subsequently, on the application of the counsel of the guardian, the time within which the account should be presented was extended by the court to May 8, 1883, and like extensions were subsequently arranged between counsel. In the mean time negotiations for a settlement, without an accounting before the court, were started by the counsel of the parties. These negotiations resulted in an agreement of settlement, which seems to have been carried out on the sixteenth day of June, 1883. The defendant's testatrix on that day paid, through her counsel, to the counsel of the complainant, the sum agreed upon, and the complainant thereupon executed a general release to the defendant's testatrix, releasing her both as guardian and as an individual of and from all claims and demands whatever. The release was prepared by complainant's counsel. She signed it in his presence, and acknowledged its due execution before him. This is the instrument which the complainant seeks to have declared invalid.

It is charged that the release was procured by fraudulent means. The complainant, in describing the method by which she was defrauded, says that, when her guardian offered her the sum which she afterwards consented to take, her guardian told her that she was not entitled to her money until her youngest sister attained 21 years of age, and that unless she would take what was then offered to her, she could get nothing for several years; that, although this representation was false, her confidence in her mother induced her to believe it to be true, and, being in great need of money, she accepted the sum offered under the pressure of her necessities, and in reliance upon the truth of her mother's statement. She also says that, when the money was paid to her, she, at the request of her guardian and her guardian's counsel, signed some paper, but she does not remember what it was; that she did not understand, when she signed the paper, what it was, and was wholly ignorant of what her rights in the matter were. She further says that she did not learn that she had been defrauded in the settlement until after her guardian's death, which occurred just 15 months after the execution of the release. Her grievance is that she was induced, by the misrepresentation of her guardian, to accept a less sum than she was legally entitled to.

This is the case made by the complainant's bill. If she has not...