Geyer v. Geyer

• Decision Date: 27 December 1908
• Citation: 75 N.J.E. 124,78 A. 449
• Parties: GEYER v. GEYER et al.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

78 A. 449

75 N.J.E. 124

GEYER

v. GEYER et al.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

Dec. 27, 1908.

Suit by Michael Geyer against John Geyer and others. Decree for complainant.

Joseph A. Beecher, for complainant.

Samuel F. Leber, for defendants.

HOWELL, V. C. In Read v. Huff, 40 N. J. Eq. 234, it was held by our Court of Errors and Appeals that, where a parent or husband pays the purchase money on a purchase of lands and has the conveyance made to a wife or child, the presumption is that an advancement or settlement was intended, and that in such case no trust could result unless the presumption should be rebutted by proof. In this case the lands in question were purchased by the complainant with his own funds, and title by his direction was made to his wife, who is now dead. An attempt was made to rebut the presumption referred to; but in my opinion the proof is not sufficient for the purpose. It consists wholly of declarations made by the wife to the effect that when she died her husband was to have the property. I do not think this is sufficient, under the circumstances of this case, for it appears, as is hereinafter more fully set out, that the wife carried out this idea by providing by her will that the husband should have a life estate in all her property, real and personal. Hence the complainant must fail on this branch of the case.

The wife left a will by which she devised to the complainant a life estate in all her realty and personalty—the same estate in the realty that he would have had if she had died intestate. The remainder of her estate was given to her son John, who was made the sole executor of the will. After this estate had vested in the life tenant, John purchased a judgment which had been recovered many years ago against his father. Execution had been issued on It, and a levy taken on the life estate, and the same had been advertised for sale. At or about the time that John took the assignment of the judgment, there was some negotiation between him and his father about the payment of the amount due on the judgment; but the amount was never paid by the father. John then sold the life estate in the realty and bought it in himself and took a sheriff's deed therefor. This gave John the fee-simple title to the lands and deprived the complainant of his interest under the will.

This transaction must be set aside. The fiduciary relation which exists between a parent and child will not permit a son to take such an unfair advantage of his aged father. The son was the remainderman; he was also executor of his mother's will, and, by implication, trustee thereunder, and it became his duty to protect, in so far as he could, the life estate of his father. The father is about 70 years of age; the son in middle life. They lived together in the same homestead property until long after the death of the mother, and the purchase by the son of the father's life estate, when, according to the father's statement, he was ejected by his son from his former home in which he claims the present life estate. All these facts point to the existence of a fiduciary relation in which the son was the fiduciary and the father the beneficiary. The son cannot, by any means known to the law, make a profit out of his position, nor will he be permitted to dissipate or take to himself the property or Interests which it is his lawful duty to preserve for his beneficiary. Huguenin v. Baseley, 14 Ves. 273; 2 W. & T. L....