Jones v. French

• Decision Date: 15 December 1883
• Docket Number: 9514
• Citation: 92 Ind. 138
• Parties: Jones, Administrator, et al. v. French et al
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

92 Ind. 138

Jones, Administrator, et al. v. French et al

No. 9514

Supreme Court of Indiana

December 15, 1883

From the Wabash Circuit Court.

Judgment reversed.

M. H Kidd, N. G. Hunter and A. Taylor, for appellants.

J. D Conner, J. D. Conner, Jr., and A. Hess, for appellees.

OPINION

Elliott, J.

The appellees instituted this action to set aside a sale of real estate made by the administrator of the estate of their deceased father, and among other charges in the complaint are the following: "The said administrator gave it out, and had it understood, that he would not ask an order to sell the real estate of said heirs and legatees, situate in Wabash county, but only the real estate in Lagrange county; neither was there anything in said petition about the land in Wabash county; but the plaintiffs say, that for the fraudulent purpose of putting the title of the Wabash county land in the defendant Benjamin Smith, and cheating and defrauding the plaintiffs, the administrator, on the 1st day of March, 1880, amended his petition by inserting therein a description of the real estate situated in Wabash county, and asking an order of court to sell said lands; that after the administrator had amended the petition he did not refile it, but designedly kept it off of the files the better to enable him to conceal his fraudulent design." "Plaintiffs say that in pursuance of said fraudulent purpose of securing the title to plaintiffs' land to Benjamin Smith, the administrator, after having told Michael Niccum, Solomon Unger, Groves Miller, and divers other persons living in the neighborhood of said land (and who were anxious to bid upon, and would buy, the said land if they had known the same to be for sale, and who would have paid one thousand dollars for the same), that he, the administrator, did not intend to sell the said land, nor ask for an order of court to sell it, but that he only intended to sell the Lagrange county land; that about the times Jones, the administrator, was so informing said persons, he was secretly and fraudulently conspiring with Benjamin Smith to let him, said Smith, have the land at less than one-half its value."

The allegations copied from the complaint show fraud on the part of both the administrator and the purchaser, and entitled appellees to have the order of sale set aside. It is fraud for an administrator to represent that he will sell only the one parcel of land described in the petition, and afterwards surreptitiously amend his petition so as to make it describe another parcel, and then designedly keep the petition from the files for the purpose of concealing the amendment from the heirs. It is gross fraud for an administrator to collude with a purchaser and by false statements prevent competing bids.

Judgments may be set aside for fraud, and the same rule applies to orders made upon the petition of administrators to sell lands for the payments of the debts of a decedent. Nealis v. Dicks, 72 Ind. 374; Sanders v. State, 85 Ind. 318 (44 Am. R. 29), vide authorities, pp. 328, 330. We have no doubt that the charges of fraud were sufficient, independent of the other averments, to make the complaint good.

The counter-claim of the appellant Smith alleges that he bought the land in good faith, paid for it the sum of $ 576, the full value thereof, and that the money paid by him was used in payment of the debts of the decedent and the expenses of administration. It also denies that there was any fraud on his part or any knowledge of any wrong on the part of the administrator. The prayer is that he may be adjudged to have a vendee's lien on the land for the sum so paid by him.

It now becomes necessary to refer to the other causes set forth in the appellees' complaint, which, in conjunction with the allegations of fraud, are relied upon as impeaching the validity of the administrator's...