Meldrum v. Meldrum

• Decision Date: 17 October 1890
• Parties: MELDRUM v. MELDRUM.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

24 P. 1083

15 Colo. 478

MELDRUM v. MELDRUM.

Supreme Court of Colorado

October 17, 1890.

Appeal from district court, Arapahoe county.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Courts have not undertaken to lay down any specific and definite rules in regard to fraud by which in all cases they will be controlled in giving relief.

2. Equitable principles can be applied to every case of fraud as it occurs, however new it may be in its circumstances.

3. The relationship of husband and wife is one of special confidence and trust, requiring the utmost good faith and frankness in their dealings with each other; and where either one is false to the other, and fraudulently or through coercion procures an unjust advantage, chancery may relieve against the transaction.

4. Where the wife, while harboring a determination to abandon her husband and dissolve the marital relation, fraudulently procures from him valuable property as a home for the family and afterwards institutes proceedings for a divorce, equity may restore the title to the husband after a decree of divorce has been granted upon his cross-complaint.

5. The fact that the husband did not, in such cross-complaint, make claim for the property so conveyed, will not defeat the subsequent action therefor based upon the fraud, the amount involved being beyond the jurisdiction of the court granting the divorce.

6. The wife alone can maintain an action for alimony.

Patterson & Thomas, for appellant.

Wells, McNeal & Taylor, for appellee.

HAYT J.

It standing admitted by the pleadings that appellant did procure a large amount of property from her husband as the result of her solicitation, our review will first be directed to the evidence of her fraud in so doing. It is in testimony that, to at least four people, appellant expressed her intention to get away with appellee's money. The witness William Robinson testified that she told him that she did not want to live where she was; that she was going to marry Meldrum, and get some money out of him. A few months after the marriage, appellant planned a trip to California with her mother, and just prior to starting, the same witness testified to having overheard a conversation between appellant and her mother in which the mother said: 'Polly, you will have to be careful about Andy, how you talk to him, and behave nicely to him, and get that $10,000 out of him,'--to which appellant replied: 'O, you leave it to me. I know how to work him. I'll get all I can out of him, you bet.' The same witness, further testifying, said: 'On another occasion, I met her [appellant] on the street in Delta, and she told me she was going to get $10,000 from Andy, and as soon as she got it she was going to skip.' Both Frank and Sarah Hepworth testify to appellant's repeated declarations, made just prior to her marriage with appellee, of her love for one Charlie Mitchell, a notorious character, but of her determination to marry Meldrum, for whom she had no affection, in order to get away with his money. The witness Miss Nettie Goldsmith testifies that in the latter part of October, or the 1st of November, appellant paid her a visit at her home in Leadville, and that while there she talked quite freely in reference to her hatred of her husband, and her love for Mitchell; that she was going to leave appellee and not live with him any more. Witness also testifies to a conversation between appellant and her mother, in which Mrs. Meldrum said: 'Mamma, I can't stand it to live with him, [appellee.] I can't wait until February.' And her mother said: 'Try to love him, and wait until the 1st of February, and then he will get his money. Then you can go to Europe or New York, and you can stay a way a year, and send him a divorce, and have a good cry, and that will be the last of it.' The witness, further testifying, details a conversation that she swears she had with appellant a little later in the year at Delta: 'I was coming back from town one day, and met Polly. She said she was going to leave Andy, and not going to stay with him any more. Said she was going to Mrs. Haas' house, and going to Leadville next day. I talked to her awhile, but she would not come back. I went back home. Polly came back that night, and she and Andy made up again. He was going up to the mine the next day, and we walked out to the bars with him. Polly took hold of my arm. She said: 'He has gone up to the mine, and after he gets the money I wish to God he would fall down and break his neck.' She says: 'Nettie, I just hate him. I just shiver when he touches me. If he would bring his money home, honest to God I'd rob him and skip.''

In February, A. D. 1886, appellee sold his interest in the Guston mine. Soon after this the parties came to Denver appellant's mother, Mrs. Bond, accompanying her daughter to this city. It was at this time that the home in Denver was purchased. The contract of purchase was made on the 13th day of February, but the deed was not delivered until a few days later. In this deed, Mrs. Meldrum was made the grantee. In reference to this, appellee testifies that 'she wanted to get it in her name, and she asked me if I would not deed it to her. I says, you have got one place now, you better let me have this one;' and she said she would give me back the place in Delta, and she wanted this one, and I joked with her, and she thought I was not going to give it to her, and she started to cry about it in the room. Her mother was present, and her mother says, says she: 'What are you crying about, Polly?' 'Well, Andydon't want to deed me that house,' she says, and her mother says: 'Well, he don't say he won't deed it to you;' yet she cried about it, and wept so hard over it, I said, 'All right, I will give it to you;' and I went up to Mr. Berkey's, and told him to make out the deed in her name.' Mrs. Meldrum's version of the transaction is as follows: 'We thought we would like to live in Denver; such a beautiful place; and he asked me how I would like it, and I told him I would like it very much. He wanted to know if he should try and buy a home, or should he buy a home, would I like it, should I be contented; and I told him, 'Yes.' We went around and looked at several nice places, and then we decided on this one up here that we have now on Grant avenue, and he asked me how I would like it for that ten thousand dollars that he promised me if he should put the money into the home, and give it to me in my name. Would it make any difference to me. Would I rather have the money. I told him it made no difference; so he bought the home. I didn't know the deeds were put in my name till after he came back. He came home, and called me to one side, and I went to the window, and he said: 'Polly, I have bought the house, and I have had the deeds put in your name,' and he said, 'and recorded. Now they are in the recorder's office.'' In another part of her testimony, Mrs. Meldrum admits that, in all their conversations in reference to the purchase of a home, a home for the family was meant. About the time they became settled in the house, and the day after the carpets were laid, and the last of the furniture put in place, appellant, making a pretext of some slight disagreement with appellee about the use of a horse and buggy which he had purchased for her recreation and amusement, drove appellee out of the house, and notified him of her intention to apply for a divorce. After this episode, appellee, at the request of appellant and her mother, departed for Delta. The testimony leaves no doubt that at this time appellee still clung to the hope that his wife would not attempt to carry out her foolish threat of obtaining a divorce, but in this he was soon undeceived by receiving the two communications from his wife, marked 'Exhibits B and C.' By those letters it appears that, despite all her efforts upon the witness stand to show a valid excuse for applying for a divorce, there did not exist in fact the remotest legal cause in her behalf for a dissolution of the marital vows. One cannot read the evidence without being impressed with the conviction that appellant had long before determined to force a separation from her husband, first receiving from him the largest portion of his estate that he could, by threats, entreaty, and dissimulation, be induced to make over to her. And, in carrying out such determination, she seems to have secured the assistance of a lawyer who had as little regard for the principles that should actuate members of the profession as the conduct of Mrs. Meldrum shows she entertained for her marital vows. It is a matter of justice to state that none of the attorneys of record in this suit were at that time employed by Mrs. Meldrum. The plot outlined in the letters of March 1st was promptly followed up by the appellant commencing proceedings in the county court for a divorce. In this action she...