Canfield v. Jeannotte

• Decision Date: 05 May 1903
• Citation: 31 Colo. 292,72 P. 1062
• Parties: CANFIELD v. JEANNOTTE et al.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

72 P. 1062

31 Colo. 292

CANFIELD v. JEANNOTTE et al.

Supreme Court of Colorado

May 5, 1903

Appeal from District Court, Lake County.

Action by Mary M. Canfield against J. A. Jeannotte and others. Judgment dismissing the action, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

George R. Elder, for appellant.

John A Ewing, for appellees.

CAMPBELL C.J.

This is an appeal from a judgment dismissing an action upon plaintiff's election to stand by her complaint to which defendant's demurrer had been sustained on the ground that not sufficient facts were therein set forth to constitute a cause of action.

The principal defendant is J. A. Jeannotte, and, as the case of his codefendants stands or falls with his, we shall, for our present purpose, consider the action as one against him alone.

The object of the suit is to have defendant adjudged a trustee of an undivided one-eighth interest in the M. N. lode mining claim, which, as it is said, was acquired in fraud of plaintiff's rights. The complaint is unnecessarily voluminous. The same facts are often repeated. Matters purely evidentiary are pleaded, and in many particulars ambiguous and uncertain averments are made. One of the grounds of the demurrer is that the complaint is ambiguous and uncertain but, as there are no specifications thereof, as our Code requires, the court properly disregarded it. Had seasonable objections been taken by motion or demurrer in proper form, to these manifest imperfections, the plaintiff might have been compelled to amend her pleadings in many particulars. These defects, however, for the reason stated, cannot now be considered, and the only inquiry is whether a cause of action can be spelled out of the complaint, so as to render it good as against the general ground of demurrer.

Defendant's counsel, in his brief, had concisely stated some of the material allegations of the complaint, which we supplement by reciting other allegations equally important, but which learned counsel has omitted. That pleading charges that in August, 1897, plaintiff and defendant Jeannotte were jointly interested with other persons in a mining lease on the M. N. lode mining claim, theretofore and on December 15, 1896, executed, to run for one year; and with these others were also co-obligees in a title bond, executed on the same day, and for the same term, on the property given thereon by three joint obligors. The purchase price fixed by the title bond was $1,500, to be paid on or before one year after its date, and the bond was also conditioned upon a compliance by the obligees with the terms of such lease; the two instruments constituting one entire contract. After the obligees entered into possession of the property under the terms of the lease, and had worked the same thereunder for about eight months, and when the lease and bond had still about four months to run, the plaintiff, on account of ill health, was obliged to leave the city of Leadville, near which this mining property was situate, and went to the state of Montana. Before leaving she appointed her co-tenant Jeannotte her agent to take charge of and look after her interests in the working and operation of the bond and lease and Jeannotte accepted the agency, and agreed with plaintiff that he would take charge of her interest in the property, and keep her advised with reference thereto, and of all matters connected therewith which she, as an owner therein, should be informed of; and it is also alleged that it was then and there agreed by plaintiff and defendant that they would continue to develop and operate the mine under the terms of the bond and lease, and before the expiration of the option to purchase, on the 15th day of December, 1897, would buy the claim at the price stipulated in the option for its purchase; and, as plaintiff says, she expressly charged her agent that she was desirous that the work should continue on the mine under the terms of the lease, so that her interests might be preserved, and forfeiture of her rights under the lease and bond averted; and her agent promised that she could rely upon him to do the same and advise her of all matters and things pertaining to the lease and bond, and that she should not lose or be defrauded of her rights therein. The complaint further states that plaintiff believed such promises, and implicitly relied thereon; and that for a while defendant performed his obligations, and saw to it that the property was worked and developed in accordance with the terms of the lease until about the 23d day of September, 1897, when, for the first time, disregarding his duty, he conspired and confederated with his codefendants to cheat and defraud plaintiff out of her interest in the mine by virtue of the terms of the lease and bond, and, in pursuance of the conspiracy, applied to one of the three co-obligors of the bond to purchase, and he did purchase from him, an undivided three-eighths interest in the mine, paying therefor at the rate which the obligees had agreed to pay under the terms of the title bond, and that this deed was obtained from the grantor solely and entirely by reason of the performance of the conditions of work and labor required under the terms of the mining lease and the title bond under which the plaintiff and the defendant and their co-tenants had entered...