Adams v. Quinn

• Decision Date: 31 January 1876
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE on the relation of M. E. ADAMS and wife and others v. JAMES QUINN and others.

74 N.C. 359

STATE on the relation of M. E. ADAMS and wife and others

v.

JAMES QUINN and others.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1876.

Whenever the relation of guardian and ward is proved or admitted, either party has a right to an account, unless the action can be barred by the plea of insimul computassent, or a release, or the statute of limitations.

Where the guardian is charged with fraud by his wards, the plaintiffs, in that, he sold certain lands whilst acting as guardian and never accounted for the proceeds, the plaintiffs are entitled to an answer to their complaint, and to a reference for an account.

CIVIL ACTION, heard upon demurrer to the complaint, before his Honor, Judge Schenck at Spring Term, 1875, of the Superior Court of GASTON county.

The complaint alleged: That the plaintiffs, Sarah Adams, Mary Torrence, Eliza Lineberger, an infant under twenty-one years of age, and without guardian, and J. H. Holland, are the distributees and heirs at law of Jasper N. Holland, and the wards of the defendant Quinn.

Jasper N. Holland died in the county of Yell, State of Arkansas, about the year 1860, leaving a will and testament, wherein he bequeathed and devised his real and personal estate to the plaintiffs; which will was admitted to probate in Gaston county, N. C., in August, 1860. The defendant Quinn was appointed executor thereof, and qualified and entered upon the discharge of his trust at that time.

In the month of April, 1861, the defendant Quinn was appointed guardian of the plaintiffs above named, giving bond as required by law, which position he held until April, 1863, when he procured his removal from said office by voluntary petition.

The plaintiffs are informed and believe that Jasper N. Holland, at the time of his death, was seized and possessed of considerable real and personal estate, which was under the control, and subject to sale by the defendant Quinn, under a power vested in him by said will. The value of said estate was some eight thousand dollars, and the indebtedness very small.

The real estate of said Holland, which the plaintiffs charge as being sold by the defendant Quinn, or which he fraudulently suffered to pass out of his possession and control, consisted of five town lots in the town of Dardanelle, Arkansas, of the value of three thousand dollars, and a tract of land containing one hundred and sixty acres, in the county of Yell, said State, of the value of one thousand dollars, besides other property of the value of four thousand dollars, of which the defendant has made no account whatever; and that said real estate is now in the possession of strangers who hold the same adversely to the plaintiffs, under bona fide deeds.

Said sales or transfers fraudulently suffered on the part of the defendant, Quinn, occurred between the time he assumed the office of guardian and the date at which he procured his removal as guardian. Plaintiffs are informed, and believe, that they have been fraudulently deprived of said property by an iniquitous combination between said Quinn and one Falls, his son-in-law, who resides in the State of Arkansas.

The destruction of the records of Yell county, Ark., which occurred during the late war, renders them unable to state definitely the means by which they have been defrauded of their rights, and this fact is well known to the defendant, Quinn, and one which they believe he expects to enable him to consummate said fraud upon them.

This fraudulent conduct on the part of the defendant, Quinn, in depriving his wards of their rights, was practiced when they were infants of tender age and unable either to know or protect themselves in their rights.

The defendant, Quinn, has made no return of the estate of Jasper N. Holland, or accounted for the same, either as executor or guardian, except a small part of the personal estate which was brought to this State.

The other defendants, J. B. Falls and Z. S. Hill, are sureties on the guardian bond of said Quinn, in the sum of eight thousand dollars.

Plaintiffs demand judgment against the defendants for eight thousand dollars, to be discharged upon the payment of the sum found to be due on an account taken in this...