Clarke v. Oliver 1

• Decision Date: 25 April 1895
• Citation: 22 S.E. 175,91 Va. 421
• Parties: CLARKE et al. v. OLIVER et al.1
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

22 S.E. 175

91 Va. 421

CLARKE et al.

v.OLIVER et al.¹

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

April 25, 1895.

Liability or Trustees?/span>Misappropriation of Fund?/span>Equity.

1. Where money was contributed to establish an industrial school for colored youths, the contributors cannot require trustees to account, as for a misappropriation of the trust fund, merely because the trustee subsequently appropriated a part of the fund for a church.

2. A court of equity will not, under its general powers to administer trusts, enforce a mere legal demand for work and labor done on property standing in the name of trustees.

Appeal from circuit court, Henrico county; B. R. Wellford, Jr., Judge.

Bill by one Clarke and others against John Oliver and others for an accounting. Defendants had decree, and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

W. W. Henry and J. Saml. Parrish, for appellants.

Stiles & Holladay and Edmund Waddill, Jr., for appellees.

KEITH, P. In the spring of 1875 certain colored people purchased of Charles G. Davis a lot of ground in the city of Richmond, on the north line of Moore street, with brick buildings thereon; and on the 22d of August, 1876, this property was conveyed to John Oliver, Coleman C. Smith, and others, who had been in the meantime appointed trustees of the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, by an order of the circuit court of Richmond city, entered on the 24th of November, 1875, to hold the property subject to the payment of the unpaid purchase money, for the benefit of the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, according to the laws of the state of Virginia governing the holding of church property. The unpaid purchase money amounted to the sum of $4,523.52, which was evidenced by five negotiable notes secured by a deed of trust. About the same time it appears that a movement was set on foot by certain colored people in the city of Richmond to raise a fund for the establishment of an industrial school, to be known as the "Moore Street Industrial Society, " the design of which was to promote the instruction of colored youth in practical and useful trades, and to that end to raise money for the purchase of suitable buildings and equipment. In order to secure the money for this industrial school, many of the influential residents of Richmond were induced to subscribe to a fund for that purpose, and by others letters were written and testimonials given, which were placed in the hands of agents, who went to Pennsylvania and elsewhere soliciting assistance for this most worthy purpose from the charitably disposed. One John Olivet-appears to have been the chief agent through whom these appeals were made. He was active and successful in procuring subscriptions, and in the month of March, 1882, the deed given to secure the unpaid purchase money resting upon the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church property was released, the sum secured thereby having been paid off and discharged. In the meantime a controversy had arisen as to the title to this property. The Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church had negotiated the purchase of the lot upon which the churchand other buildings stand, and had taken the deed from Davis, their vendor, to trustees for its benefit, and had by strenuous efforts assisted in some degree in relieving it of the lien for the balance of the unpaid purchase money. Be this as it may, however, certain it is that the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church was in possession, with the absolute legal title, subject only to the deed of trust before mentioned in favor of Davis for the unpaid purchase money, and, when that incumbrance was discharged, the apparent title of the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, through its trustees, was perfect and complete. Those, however, who had been instrumental in promoting the organization of the industrial school determined to assert a claim to this property by reason of the fact, which is beyond dispute, that by far the greater part, if not the whole, of the purchase money had been paid out of the money raised by contributions voluntarily made by persons whose aid had been solicited for the erection and endowment of an industrial school, and not for the establishment of a Baptist Church. This controversy between these two organizations, the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church and those representing the industrial school, resulted in a compromise, and in April, 1880, a deed was executed by the trustees of the church and of the Moore Street Industrial School, by which the greater part of this property was conveyed for the benefit of the school, and with a covenant that, if that portion of it which remained for the benefit of the church should at any time cease to be used for religious purposes and for worship by the said Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, it should belong to and be used by the Moore Street Industrial School. This arrangement, which it was hoped would compose the difficulties between the church and the school, did not have that effect, and six years after its execution a bill was filed on behalf of a number of plaintiffs, suing for themselves and others, contributors to the fund for the establishment of an industrial school, setting out the terms and conditions upon which they had subscribed, declaring that it was for the establishment of a school to enable colored youth in the southern portion of the United States to acquire useful and practical trades, and to become skilled laborers, and generally to elevate their condition. They averred that they were not solicited for subscriptions for any other purpose, and that they did not subscribe or contribute any money to any person for the establishment of the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church or any church whatever; that they paid their money to John Oliver, as agent, to establish the said school, and not to build or to aid or to establish a church. They then set out substantially the facts that have been narrated, and claim that there has been a diversion of the fund from the uses and purposes for which it was designed, and that this application of the money given by them for the industrial school for the purchase of property for the Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, without their knowledge and consent,...