Buenaventura Ubarri Yramategui v. Jacinto Lorenzo Lopez Laborde

• Decision Date: 17 May 1909
• Docket Number: No. 137,137
• Citation: 214 U.S. 168,29 S.Ct. 549,53 L.Ed. 953
• Parties: BUENAVENTURA UBARRI Y YRAMATEGUI, Plff. in Err., v. JACINTO LORENZO LOPEZ LABORDE, Maria Consolacion Lopez Laborde, Manuel Demetrio Lopez Laborde, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

214 U.S. 168

29 S.Ct. 549

53 L.Ed. 953

BUENAVENTURA UBARRI Y YRAMATEGUI, Plff. in Err.,

v JACINTO LORENZO LOPEZ LABORDE, Maria Consolacion Lopez Laborde, Manuel Demetrio Lopez Laborde, et al.

No. 137.

Argued April 7, 8, 1909.

Decided May 17, 1909.

Messrs. Walter D. Davidge and Clifford S. Walton for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Willis Sweet and George H. Lamar for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an action by children of one Jacinto Lopez against one of the heirs of one Pablo Ubarri, alleging fraud on the part of the said Pablo in dealing with the estate of Lopez. It is alleged that as the result Pablo Ubarri became the owner of more than 4,000 acres of land that had belonged to Lopez, and otherwise damaged and defrauded the estate to the extent of over $150,000. There was a trial and a verdict and judgment for the plaintiffs, the defendants in error. Many errors were alleged by exception and otherwise, and the case was brought by writ of error to this court.

The facts relied upon as establishing fraud are as follows: Pablo Ubarri received from the widow of Lopez a power of attorney to administer the estate, and appointed as his substitute one Tomas Cabellero. The probate proceedings went on amicably, the heirs were declared, and the estate was appraised and apportioned to them, the widow receiving property that by valuation was sufficient to pay the scheduled debts in addition to her personal share. Among these debts was one to Pablo Ubarri of $24,000. When the probate proceedings were ended, this debt was disputed by the widow, who asked for documentary evidence; Ubarri thereupon showed some irritation, and wrote to her in a manner that might be taken to imply a threat. She persisting, he began a suit with an attachment, the above-named Caballero being his procurador. Before and afterward some of the property was attached for taxes, and ultimately it was sold. Ubarri became the purchaser, no other bidders appearing at the sale. Then his action went to judgment, and, finally, the land belonging to the estate, or a large part of it, was adjudicated to him upon execution. Ubarri was the richest, and, politically, the most powerful man in Porto Rico. Circumstances are stated suggesting the inference that even the judges might have been afraid of him. It is said that the representative of the minor heirs, the appraisers of the estate, and pretty much everyone concerned in the probate proceedings were in such relations to him as to be likely to be his tools; that the appraisal was much too low, that the sale for taxes brought a wholly inadequate price, that the attachment tied up the estate so that no money could be got to pay any debt, and that he was an official superior of the municipal authorities ordering the collection of the taxes, and practically the head of those affairs. The inference sought to be drawn from his powers and the result is that he pressed the collection of the taxes after he had made it impossible for the estate to pay them; that no one would dare to oppose when it was made known that he wished to buy, and that, by his pressure at both ends, he was able ultimately to appropriate and exhaust an estate appraised by his own appointees at $123,000, for a claim of $24,000 and a comparatively small debt for taxes. It seems to have been argued at the trial that he helped out this result by causing the property attached to be appraised at too low a value, and thus enabling himself to bid it in, as he did, at two thirds of that valuation, under arts. 1497, 1502, of the Code of Civil Procedure then in force.

As a further circumstance it was alleged and proved that the widow was proceeded against criminally for cutting a few trees from the estate after Ubarri's attachment, and was acquitted in the court of first instance, but that Ubarri, as private prosecutor, took the case to a higher court, being represented there by the above-named Caballero, and got a sentence of fine or imprisonment imposed upon her. We do not perceive the relevancy of the fact, except possibly as showing the animus with which Ubarri pressed his rights.

On the other side we start with the fact that the debt to Ubarri is admitted, and that in the argument it was stated that no objections have been made to the probate proceedings. Certainly no ground appears for suggesting that anything in those proceedings contributed in any way to the alleged fraud. But, if this be so, any special duty or burden of proof arising out of confidential relations disappears. We have simply the case of a...