Engelbrecht v. Engelbrecht
| Decision Date | 28 October 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 17473.,17473. |
| Citation | 323 Ill. 208,153 N.E. 827 |
| Parties | ENGELBRECHT v. ENGELBRECHT et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Bill by Maria Engelbrecht against Fred Engelbrecht and others. From a decree of dismissal, plaintiff appeals.
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.Appeal from Circuit Court, McLean County; Edward Barry, judge.
Costigan & Wollrab, of Bloomington, for appellant.
Sigmund Livingston, of Chicago, for appellees.
This appeal is from a decree of the circuit court of McLean county sustaining exceptions to the master's report and dismissing for want of equity the bill filed by Maria Engelbrecht, appellant, to set aside a certain agreement entered into by the parties to this suit and to declare vested in appellant certain real and personal property which the bill alleges was held by appellant and her husband in joint tenancy.
The facts established by the evidence are substantially as follows: Appellant is the widow of Chris Engelbrecht, who died testate January 11, 1922. Prior to her marriage to Chris, appellant obtained a divorce from her first husband, John Zech. Appellee Fred Engelbrecht is the nephew of Chris' first wife and is the adopted son of Chris. Bertha Engelbrecht is his wife. After the marriage of Chris and Maria they lived on a 22-acre truck farm near Bloomington. Fred lived with them until he was 24 years old. All of them worked on the farm and their earnings were kept in a common family fund. After Fred's marriage he purchased a house and lot in the city of Bloomington and occupied it as his home. From the time of Maria's marriage to Chris she treated Fred as her son and Fred treated her as his mother. Chris and Maria were uneducated persons, who had emigrated from Germany to this country, and they depended on Fred for advice in their business transactions. When Maria secured her divorce, she received $1,100 from Zech. When she married Chris, she added this money to what he had and all of it was used in financing their truck business. In 1916 Fred and his wife traded their town property to his parents for their farm, giving, as additional consideration, $400 in cash and a note for $1,400 secured by a mortgage on the farm. This note was unpaid when Chris died. The deed made by Fred and his wife conveyed the town property to ‘Christian Engelbrecht and Maria Engelbrecht, his wife as joint tenants.’
When Chris died, there was on deposit in two banks in Bloomington $1,610, evidenced by six certificates of deposit. All of these were made payable to Chris and Maria, five of them containing the statement, ‘payable to the order of either on return of this certificate properly indorsed,’ and the sixth being ‘payable to the order of self or wife in current funds on the return of this certificate properly indorsed.’ By his will Chris made two specific bequests of $100 each, gave all the rest of his property to his wife for life or so long as she remained unmarried, and upon her death or remarriage gave the remainder to his son Fred, whom he named executor. After the will had been admitted to record and Fred appointed executor, Fred and the attorney representing him advised Maria that she had not been legally married to Chris because her divorce from her first husband was not legal. She produced her marriage certificate to show that she had been married to Chris, but was told that that did not make her marriage legal because there was no record of her being divorced at the time the marriage ceremony was performed. Being advised by Fred and his attorney that she was not entitled to any of the property left by Chris, she sought independent legal advice. The attorney employed by her made an effort to find the record of the divorce proceedings, but because she pronounced the name ‘Zech’ as though it began with an S., he confined his search of the index to the letter S. and did not find the record. He was told by Fred and his attorney that the town property belonged to Chris, and he did not examine the deed. Believing the representations made to him by Fred and his attorney, Maria's attorney advised her that it was best for her to accept a settlement. After consultation, an agreement was prepared which gave to Maria the use of the town property for life and one-half of the personal property after the payment of debts and expenses. Thereafter she learned that the deed conveyed the town property to Chris and her as joint tenants, and she was advised that she was entitled, as survivor, to the money represented by the certificates of deposit. Thereupon she filed her bill, setting up that the agreement was made under a misapprehension of the facts and as a result of the false representations made by Fred, and asking that it be set aside and her interest in the estate declared.
[2] It is admitted by the parties, and the evidence shows, that when the attorneys advised Maria that she was not legally divorced from Zech they were honestly mistaken. Because of her inability to speak the English language plainly, both attorneys had searched for her name in the records under the letter S. In order to grant relief, however, it is not necessary to find that the false representation which induced Maria to execute the agreement was made with fraudulent intent. Champlin v. Laytin, 18 Wend. (N. Y.) 407, 31 Am. Dec. 382; 2 Pomeroy's Eq. Jur. § 847. She signed the agreement which gave to Fred property to which he was not entitled, under a misrepresentation which, however innocently made, operated as a fraud on her. It is against conscience for those who led her into the error to insist on the fruits of the contract. The evidence in this record shows that a fiduciary relation existed between Fred and Maria because of her dependence on him in the transaction of business (Hensan v. Cooksey, 237 Ill. 620, 86 N. E. 1107,127 Am. St. Rep. 345), and in so far as the agreement had to do with the administration of the estate of Chris Engelbrecht, the relation of Fred as executor and Maria as a beneficiary of the estate was that of trustee and cestui que trust (Lipscomb v. Allen, 298 Ill. 537, 132 N. E. 206;Parks v. Brooks, 188 Mich. 645, 155 N. W. 450).
[4][5] Where, as in this case, there is a marked disparity in the position and intelligence of the parties, so that they have not dealt on equal terms, and where the party obtaining the property is the dominant party and has taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him by the party losing the...
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...re Estate of Halaska, 307 Ill.App. 183, 30 N.E.2d 117; In re Estate of Koester, 286 Ill.App. 113, 3 N.E.2d 102. Cf. Engelbrecht v. Engelbrecht, 323 Ill. 208, 153 N.E. 827; Lindner & Boyden Bank v. Wardrop, 370 Ill. 310, 18 N.E.2d In the McIlrath case, where the facts were in all essentials ......
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