Loughran v. Gorman

• Decision Date: 04 December 1912
• Citation: 256 Ill. 46,99 N.E. 886
• Parties: LOUGHRAN et al. v. GORMAN.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

256 Ill. 46

99 N.E. 886

LOUGHRAN et al.

v.GORMAN.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Oct. 26, 1912.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 4, 1912.

Error to Appellate Court, Second District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, Will County; Dorrance Dibell, Judge.

Bill by M. F. Loughran and another against John A. Gorman. From a judgment of the Appellate Court affirming a decree for complainants, defendant appeals. Affirmed.J. L. O'Donnell, T. F. Donovan, and J. A. Bray, all of Joliet (J. L. O'Donnell, of Joliet, of counsel), for appellant.

Barr, McNaughton & Barr, of Joliet, for appellees.

CARTER, J.

This is a bill filed in the circuit court of Will county in 1904 by appellees, alleging that they were the owners of several notes secured by trust deeds on a certain lot in Joliet, Ill., and asking for the foreclosure of said trust deeds. After the pleadings were settled a hearing was had on the supplemental bill and answer before the court and decree entered in accordance with the prayer of the supplemental bill. From that decree an appeal was prayed to the Appellate Court for the Second District. Mr. Presiding Justice Dibell of that court, having been the judge before whom the case was tried in the circuit court, took no part in its consideration in the Appellate Court. The other two Appellate Court justices were divided in opinion as to whether the decree should be affirmed or reversed, and it was thereupon affirmed by operation of law. A certificate of importance was granted, and this appeal followed.

The record shows that John Gorman obtained a warranty deed to the lot in question July 26, 1873. It was then vacant and unoccupied. January 8, 1875, he married Mary E. Daly in Will county. He died as the result of an accident November 19, 1875, intestate, and his estate was never administered. John A. Gorman, the appellant, was born as the issue of this marriage, February 2, 1876. His mother, Mary E. Gorman, married another John Gorman (cousin of her former husband) June 6, 1977. The second John Gorman and his wife built a house upon the lot in 1881 and moved into it. He paid the taxes on the property from 1879 until his death, and in 1880 built a stone sidewalk in front of it by order of the city council. In this home he raised seven children born of his marriage with Mary E. Gorman. John A. Gorman was raised in the family of the second John Gorman as one of his own children, and continued as a member of that family after the death of his stepfather until he was over 25 years old. The second John Gorman died testate in 1895, willing his property, real and personal, to his wife. After his death the widow, in January, 1898, married James M. Finnegan, and during that year built a second house on the lot in question. In July, 1898, a trust deed was placed on the property to secure a loan of $1,300, a portion of which was used to pay off a loan made for the purpose of building the house. Several loans had previously been made by Mary E. Gorman and the second John Gorman, secured by mortgages or trust deeds on the lot. In September, 1899, Mary E. Finnegan borrowed $500, and again on March 27, 1900, she borrowed another $500, and on January 7, 1901, she borrowed $300, and in May, 1901, she borrowed $200, securing the loans each time by a separate trust deed on the lot. All of these five loans, with interest, the decree found due and unpaid. There is no controversy in the record as to the foregoing facts. Mary E. Finnegan was stricken with paralysis in 1901 and taken to a hospital. From that time until her death, in 1907, she was unable to talk, and the evidence tends to show that she became feebleminded.

There is a conflict in the evidence as to when John A. Gorman first knew that he was not the son, but only the stepson, of the second John Gorman. He himself testified that he did not learn of it until his mother's sickness, in 1901; that he had heard rumors of it many times before and had asked his mother several times and she had always denied it. One of his half-brothers testified that John A. Gorman told him in 1898, after their mother married Mr. Finnegan, that he owned the lot and could make trouble about it if he wanted to. There is some testimony in the record tending to show that he knew of it before or about the time he became of age, in 1897. The decree found that appellant, before arriving at the age of 21 years and before the second house was constructed on said lot, learned that he was the son of the first John Gorman; that appellant was seised in fee of the lot in question as the sole heir of the first John Gorman, subject to the dower of his mother; that he knew in 1898 the second house was being built on the property, and, notwithstanding he knew that he was the owner of the fee title, acquiesced in his mother's making the improvements, obtaining loans and securing the same by mortgages or trust deeds on the property.

[1] It is contended by counsel for appellees, but denied by counsel for appellant, that this decree is sustainable on the theory of equitable estoppel as against appellant. The general rule is that, if a person interested in an estate knowingly misleads another into dealing with the estate as if he were not interested, he will be postponed to the party misled. This rule applies to one who knowingly suffers another to deal with land as if it were his own, and who knowingly suffers another to expend money for improvements without giving notice of his own claim. 2 Pomeroy's Eq. Jur. (3d Ed.) § 807. Acquiescence consisting of mere silence may operate as an estoppel in equity to preclude a party from asserting legal title and rights of property. All instances of this kind rest in equity upon the principle that, ‘where a man has been silent when in conscience he ought to have spoken, he shall be debarred from speaking when conscience requires him to be silent.’ Niven v. Belknap, 2 Johns. (N. Y.) 573; Bigelow on Estoppel (5th Ed.) 586; 2 Pomeroy's Eq. Jur. (3d Ed.) § 818. In discussing this principle, this court, in Anderson v. Armstead, 69 Ill. 452, said: ‘The law is familiar that where the owner of property holds out another, or allows him to appear, as the owner of or as having full power of disposition over the property, and innocent parties are thus led into dealing with such apparent owner or person having the apparent power of disposition, they will be protected. Their rights, in such cases, do not depend upon the actual title or authority of the party with whom they have directly dealt, but they are derived from the act of the real owner, which precludes...