Miles v. Wheeler

• Decision Date: 31 January 1867
• Citation: 1867 WL 4994,43 Ill. 123
• Parties: STEPHEN W. MILES et al.v.MARY J. WHEELER et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

43 Ill. 123

1867 WL 4994 (Ill.)

STEPHEN W. MILES et al.

v.MARY J. WHEELER et al.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1867.

WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Monroe county; the Hon. SILAS L. BRYAN, Judge, presiding.

This was a suit in chancery, instituted in the court below by the defendants in error, the heirs at law of Amasa Wheeler, deceased, against the plaintiffs in error. The bill was filed for the purpose of setting aside a sale of land made by the administrator for the payment of debts, under an order of court; and an account of the rents and profits. Upon the hearing of the case in the Circuit Court a decree was rendered, setting aside the sale, requiring the defendants to make a deed, etc. The defendants to the bill brought the case to this court by writ of error.

The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion.

Messrs. H. K. S. O'MELVENY and WM. R. MORRISON, for the plaintiffs in error.

Messrs. WM. H. UNDERWOOD and W. H. BARNUM, for the defendants in error. Mr. JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was a bill in chancery, filed in April, 1861, by the heirs of Amasa Wheeler, for the purpose of setting aside a sale of land made by his administrator for the payment of debts, under an order of court. The facts material to the present case are as follows:

Amasa Wheeler, the father of the complainants below, defendants in error here, died in 1839, and Stephen W. Miles, senior, was appointed his administrator. In 1842 the latter obtained an order from the Circuit Court of Monroe county for the sale of the land of the deceased, and in August of the same year sold the premises now in controversy, and was himself the purchaser. In May, 1844, he obtained another order for the sale of the same land, and in July, 1844, professed to sell it to one Alexander, and so reported to the court. He made no deed to Alexander, however, until the 13th of September, 1845, when he conveyed to him, and on the same day Alexander reconveyed to Miles. Alexander never exercised any acts of ownership over the land, but, on the contrary, Miles took possession in 1840 or 1841, and kept possession up to the date of his own death in 1859, and always claimed it as his own. By his last will he devised the land to his son, Alonzo N. Miles, upon certain conditions, on his failure to perform which it was given to his elder son, Stephen W. Miles, junior, who in the mean while was to hold it as trustee for Alonzo. This bill is brought against them by the heirs of Wheeler to procure a reconveyance and an account of the rents and profits.

There is really no room for controversy as to the main question. It is perfectly manifest, from the facts stated above, that the name of Alexander was used merely as a means of passing the title of the land to Miles; that the sale to Alexander was simply colorable; and that the transaction was really a purchase by an administrator at his own sale. This the law forbids. Thorp v. McCullom et al., 1 Gilm. 614; Dennis v. McCagg, 32 Ill. 444; Michaud v. Girard, 4 How. 553. In this last case the Supreme Court of the United States gave this question a very searching examination, reviewing the authorities both in the common and civil law. In that case an executor, as in this an administrator, became the purchaser, through the interposition of a third person, of real estate belonging to the deceased, and sold at public sale. The court laid down the salutary rule that this is fraudulent per se, and that it matters not that the sale was at a public auction, for a fair price, and made through the medium of a third person as the bidder, and to whom the executor or administrator conveys. It avails nothing to show that the intentions of the trustee were honest, and that there was no fraud in fact. It is one of those cases in which the law will not permit a trustee to palter with his own conscience. It shields him from all temptation by the inflexible rule that he cannot buy. The plain and sufficient reason is that the interests of the buyer and seller of the same property are necessarily antagonistic, and the only safe rule is one which absolutely forbids a trustee to occupy two positions inconsistent with each other. A leading case in this country on this subject is Davone v. Fanning, 2 Johns. Ch. 252, in which the authorities are very fully considered by Chancellor KENT, and the rule is applied with great strictness.

It is however insisted by the counsel for plaintiffs in error that the right to relief in the present case is lost by lapse of time. While statutes of limitation do not strictly apply to trusts, yet in cases of constructive, as distinct from express, trusts, courts of equity will sometimes adopt the analogies of the statute and refuse relief after an unreasonable and unexplained lapse of time. But the courts have never sought to lay down a precise rule. Each case is to be adjudged in this regard upon its particular circumstances. In Hill on Trustees, 168, it is said: “But mere length of time will not, of itself, be a bar to relief on a constructive trust originating in fraud. The party entitled to the benefit of such a trust must also be aware of his rights and acquiesce in being deprived of them; and time, in order to bar the remedy, will not begin to run until he acquires, or might have acquired, the knowledge of the fact on which the trust is founded.” On the next page, the author adds: “It is difficult to lay down as a general proposition, what length of acquiescence will be a bar to relief on the ground of fraud. This must necessarily be a matter of equitable discretion, depending on the nature of the transaction and the circumstances of the parties in each individual case. The legal bar of twenty years appears to have been treated as the proper limit on several occasions; and it was distinctly decided in one case, that equity will not relieve where the facts constituting the fraud are in the knowledge of the party and he lies by for twenty-five years, and in another case twenty-one years' acquiescence was held to be a bar.” On page 265, the author recurs to this subject, and quotes various cases showing that while in some instances relief has been refused after the expiration of eighteen years, on the ground of acquiescence, in others it has been allowed after the lapse of fifty years. On page 266, he says: “it is almost needless to add that a ...