Oakley v. Ritchey

• Decision Date: 11 June 1886
• Parties: OAKLEY, ADM'R, ETC., v. RITCHEY.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

69 Iowa 69

28 N.W. 448

OAKLEY, ADM'R, ETC.,

v.RITCHEY.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

June 11, 1886.

Appeal from Adams district court.

On the seventeenth day of July, 1882, A. B. Fisher, plaintiff's intestate, executed two deeds, by which he conveyed to defendant a farm consisting of 45 acres. He subsequently instituted this suit in equity for the cancellation of said deeds on the alleged grounds that they were executed without consideration, and that they were obtained by fraud and undue influence. During the pendency of the action Fisher died, and his administrator was substituted as plaintiff. The district court entered judgment for plaintiff, granting the relief demanded, from which defendant appealedGuthrie & Maley, for appellant.

Maxwell & Dale, for appellee.

REED, J.

The questions involved in the case are chiefly of fact, and there is great conflict in the evidence offered by the parties in support of their respective theories. It is claimed by plaintiff that Fisher was of weak mind, and that for some time before the execution of the conveyances in question he had been greatly harassed and troubled by a number of petty lawsuits in which he was involved; and that during these troubles defendant, although not a lawyer, was his principal adviser; and that he had acquired great influence over him. On the day before that on which the conveyances were executed defendant went to see Fisher, who was then working on a farm some five miles distant from defendant's place of residence, and the parties then had a conversation with reference to the conveyance of the property. Fisher accompanied defendant to his home, where he remained during the night, and on the following morning he executed the deeds, and delivered them to defendant. It is claimed by plaintiff that in the interview at the farm defendant represented to Fisher that some of the parties with whom he was having trouble were about to institute legal proceedings by which the property was liable to be taken from him, and that unless he made some disposition of it he would lose all of his property; and advised him to convey the farm in question to him, promising at the time that he would reconvey the property to Fisher after the trouble should be settled; and that Fisher was induced, by these representations and promises, to execute the conveyances, and that he received no consideration therefor. Defendant's claim is that the transaction was a bone fide purchase by him of the premises, and that he paid a fair and adequate consideration for the property.

As a rule, it is neither practicable nor profitable, in this class of cases, to set out in the opinion the evidence on which our conclusions are based. This is true in the present case. We shall therefore content ourselves with a statement of the ultimate facts which we find established by the evidence.

We are...