Hunter v. Hunter

• Citation: 50 Mo. 445
• Parties: MARCUS D. L. HUNTER et al., Plaintiffs in Error, v. JOHN HUNTER et al., Defendants in Error.
• Decision Date: 31 August 1872
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

50 Mo. 445

MARCUS D. L. HUNTER et al., Plaintiffs in Error,

v.JOHN HUNTER et al., Defendants in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

August Term, 1872.

Error to Buchanan Court of Common Pleas.

T. A. Green, for plaintiffs in error.

I. Trustees, agents, administrators, guardians, attorneys or others, whose connection with any other person is such as to establish a confidential relation between them concerning the property of such person, or to give them official knowledge and opportunities in regard to such property, cannot become the purchasers of such property, even though the sale be at public auction. (Thornton v. Irwin, 43 Mo. 153-168.) It makes no difference that the agent committed no actual fraud, or that no injury resulted to the parties in interest; the law avoids the sale on the grounds of public policy. And where one acts gratuitously, in the relation of mere friendship or instrumentality, and is not clothed with the character and all the responsibilities of an agent, yet he cannot be permitted to avail himself of any information he may thus acquire, or of the confidence imposed in him, to commit a fraud on the friend he consents to serve. Fraud is odious in law, and will not be tolerated under the guise of friendship or gratuitous service. (McDonald v. Fithian et al., 6 Ill. 269, 301.) Where influence is shown to have been unduly exercised, or confidence to have been reposed and abused, its source is immaterial; a man being as much bound to act for the best interest of another who has trusted him as a friend, as if he had been appointed trustee or agent. (Turner v. Turner, 44 Mo. 538; McCormick v. Malin, 5 Blackf. 509; 19 Mo. 325; Dillon's Adm'r v. Bates, 39 Mo. 292-301; Grumley v. Webb, 44 Mo. 444-455; Rubey v. Barnett, 12 Mo. 3, 8; Davoue v. Fanning, 2 Johns. Ch. 252-270; Gardner v. Ogden, 22 N. Y. 328; Michoud v. Girod, 4 How. 503-561.)

II. The statutes of limitations do not run against resulting or constructive trusts where actual fraud is imputed and proved, and where the trust is within the proper, peculiar and exclusive jurisdiction of courts of equity; and the issue is directly between the cestui que trust and the trustee. (Michoud v. Girod, 4 How. 560; McNew v. Booth, 42 Mo. 189; Davoue v. Fanning, 2 Johns. Ch. 269-270; Dillon's Adm'r v. Bates, 39 Mo. 292, 301; Rubey v. Barnett, 12 Mo. 3, 8.) In case of actual frauds, courts of equity give relief after a long lapse of time, and length of time ought not to bar relief. (Prevost v. Gratz, 6 Wheat. 481.) Where the fraud is merely constructive, lapse of time may operate.

The defendant sets up as a bar to this suit that part of section 10, Wagner's Statutes, p. 918, which provides “that an action for relief on the ground of fraud must be commenced within five years from the discovery of the facts constituting the fraud.” This provision applies only to ordinary frauds, where there is no confidential or fiduciary relation, and can in no manner apply to trusts of any kind. This does not in any manner change the common equity doctrine, nor can a court of equity apply it in this case, as there is no analogy whatever to any suit at law.

There is no express statute of limitations which applies to this case (39 Mo. 301, supra), it having no analogy to a suit at law. When the statute fixes a bar to a legal remedy, a court of equity having concurrent jurisdiction will apply the same bar, as in such cases equity follows the law; but the law gives no remedy in cases of resulting trust. Such cases are within the proper, peculiar and exclusive jurisdiction of courts of equity, and relief should be granted within a reasonable time; and what is a reasonable time depends on the facts of each particular case.

Vories & Vories and Woodson, Jr., for defendants in error.

The statute of limitations set up in defendant's answer was a good bar to plaintiffs' demand. The petition of plaintiffs was filed August 27, 1868, and charges that in the year 1858 the plaintiffs sold and conveyed the land set out in their petition. The trust, as charged in the petition, grows out of the alleged fraud of defendant, which makes a case of constructive trust growing out of a charged detected fraud, which, under our statute (2 Wagn. Stat. 918, § 10), is barred in five years after its discovery by the aggrieved party, continued from 1855 and 1857. Hence, if the charge in the petition be true, and defendant, when he purchased the land, was a trustee, then the very moment he claimed the land as his own, and denied and repudiated such trust, and plaintiffs knew of that fact, the statute commenced running. (Keeton's Heirs v. Keeton's Adm'r, 20 Mo. 538-546, and authorities referred to; The State, etc., v. Willi, 46 Mo. 236, and authorities.) Before the statute under consideration was adopted, courts of equity, in cases such as the one at bar, applied the very doctrine of the statute; and since our code, which does away with all distinction in many respects between law and equity, the statute prescribes one common-law principle in all cases.

ADAMS, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was originally commenced against both defendants, but was compromised and dismissed as to Whitehead and continued against the other defendant, Hunter. The facts, as they clearly appear from the pleadings and proofs, are these: The plaintiffs, Marcus L. Hunter and Mary Jane Buntain, are brother and sister, who, when they were small children, resided with their parents in Buchanan county; and their parents died, leaving them the owners in fee of 160 acres of land in Buchanan county. These infants were removed to the State of Illinois, and are still residents of that State. The defendants, John Hunter and Whitehead, are brothers-in-law, and uncles of the plaintiffs. Whitehead assumed to act, and did act, as agent for the plaintiffs in Missouri, in looking after and overseeing their land, and in payment of the taxes; and the defendant Hunter acted as agent for them in Illinois, in seeing that moneys were remitted to the agent in Missouri for payment of the taxes, and did all the correspondence for plaintiffs in regard to their land in Missouri. After the plaintiff Marcus L. Hunter had become of age, and while his sister was eighteen or nineteen years old, but married to Buntain, they concluded to sell their Missouri land and authorized their two uncles to sell the land. Whitehead, the Missouri uncle, proposed to purchase the land, and offered $20 per acre for it; asserting, in letters written to the defendant Hunter, that the land was worth only $20 per acre, which letters were shown to the plaintiffs. A conspiracy was formed between the two uncles to obtain the land at a greatly reduced price. Both of them were well aware that the land was worth a much larger amount than Whitehead proposed to give, but this fact was carefully concealed from the plaintiffs. The purchase was to be made in the name of Whitehead, who was to sell the land and share the profits with the defendant Hunter, who was to obtain from the plaintiffs the deed for the land. The plaintiffs, confidently relying upon the integrity of the two uncles, finally agreed to sell the land to Whitehead for $20 per acre, amounting to $3,200; and in the spring of 1858 the sale was completed and the deed executed by the parties in Illinois, and sent to Whitehead. It appears that Whitehead thought that there were some informalities in the acknowledgments, and also ascertained that the plaintiff Mary Jane Buntain was under age when she made the deed. He therefore sent the deed back to Illinois to have it properly acknowledged, and also applied to the husband of Mary Jane Buntain to give a bond that they would make a good deed when she became of age. In the meantime the defendant Whitehead sold the Missouri land on time at $50 per acre, amounting to $8,000. This sale was made in 1858, in a very short time after the purchase from plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs having learned the greatly enhanced price the land sold for, refused to make any other deed or acknowledgments. The defendant Whitehead, in furtherance of the fraudulent conspiracy, in order to obtain the title of Mary Jane Buntain, commenced a suit by order of publication in the Buchanan Court of Common Pleas, for the partition and sale of the land, claiming to be the owner of one half, and the plaintiff Mary Jane Buntain the other half. This partition suit resulted in the sale of the land, no defense having been made, and no other notice having been given except the order of publication. The defendant Whitehead purchased it in 1859, at this partition sale, at the nominal price of $1,500, and after deducting the costs gave bond to account for plaintiff Mary Jane Buntain's half. After thus...