Runyon v. Snell
| Decision Date | 16 November 1888 |
| Docket Number | 13,428 |
| Citation | 18 N.E. 522,116 Ind. 164 |
| Parties | Runyon v. Snell |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Delaware Circuit Court.
The judgment is reversed, with costs, with directions to sustain the plaintiff's motion for a new trial.
G. H Koons and J. F. Duckwall, for appellant.
The plaintiff, Eliza A. Runyon, alleges in her complaint that, on the 5th day of November, 1877, she was the owner of a certain lot in the city of Muncie in Delaware county, of the value of eleven hundred dollars, which she on that day conveyed to the defendant, Solomon R. Snell, in consideration of an agreement on the part of the latter to convey to her certain real estate which he owned in the State of Iowa. It is alleged that after receiving the conveyance of the plaintiff's real estate, the defendant refused to convey the Iowa land in compliance with his contract, to the plaintiff's damage etc. This action was commenced in the month of October, 1884.
The defendant answered by a general denial, the six years statute of limitations, and that he had fully paid and satisfied any claim or demand for money growing out of the alleged conveyance of real estate to him.
The cause was submitted to a jury, and upon a verdict duly returned there was judgment for the defendant.
After carefully considering the evidence, we are constrained to the conclusion that the court erred in overruling the plaintiff's motion for a new trial.
There is no dispute but that the real estate conveyed to the defendant was the separate property of the plaintiff, a married woman, and it is equally beyond dispute that she has never received the value of a farthing, either in money or property, for the conveyance. Of course, if she authorized her husband to sell her property, and received payment for it, and the defendant has made payment in good faith, the plaintiff can not now complain, even though her husband may have abused her confidence and violated his obligation and duty as her agent. It must be understood however, that the principles which govern in dealing with an agent are the same, where the agent happens to be a husband whose principal is his wife, as where the principal and agent are in other respects strangers, and that one who purchases the property of a married woman through the agency of her husband must pay for it precisely as if he had purchased through an agent who sustained no such relation. With these principles in view, we proceed briefly to consider the evidence. Accepting the defendant's testimony as true, it appears that in 1877 he held certain notes against George W Runyon, the plaintiff's husband, amounting to about three hundred dollars. He charged Runyon with having forged the name of another as surety upon one or more of the notes, and demanded that they be taken up. Mrs. Runyon had previously authorized her husband to sell her property, and he then proposed to sell it to the defendant. The latter agreed to purchase and pay five hundred and fifty dollars for the lot, and to turn in Runyon's notes, and another note, which the evidence tends to show was worthless, against one Glick, as part payment, and to pay the balance of the purchase-price in cash. This arrangement was consummated between Runyon and the defendant.
Both Mrs. Runyon and her husband testify, and we find no evidence to the contrary, that she was induced to believe that her property was being...
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