Wallace v. Mattice
| Decision Date | 12 March 1889 |
| Docket Number | 13,504 |
| Citation | 20 N.E. 497,118 Ind. 59 |
| Parties | Wallace v. Mattice |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
From the Fulton Circuit Court.
Judgment is affirmed, with costs.
J. H Bibler, M. L. Essick and O. F. Montgomery, for appellant.
J Rowley, M. A. Baker, G. W. Holman and -- Corbin, for appellee.
This was an action of replevin commenced by Edmund Mattice against Robert C. Wallace, sheriff of Fulton county. The controversy involved the ownership and right to the possession of certain personal property which had been transferred to Julius Rowley by Solomon Wagoner, the plaintiff having, as he claimed, purchased it from Rowley. The property had been seized by the sheriff to satisfy an execution issued on a judgment, rendered by the Fulton Circuit Court against Wagoner and another, in favor of John E. Gordon. The transfers from Wagoner to Rowley, and from the latter to Mattice, were assailed as having been made in bad faith and in fraud of the rights of Wagoner's creditors. There was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff in the court below.
The court, having stated the nature of the issues in previous instructions, told the jury that "fraud is never presumed, but the burden rests upon one charging fraud to make it out by clear and convincing evidence." For the appellant it is now argued that this instruction must have misled the jury, because it conveyed the impression that fraud must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The instruction is not obnoxious to this objection.
It is well settled, as an abstract rule of law, that fraud, as a matter of fact, is never presumed; it must be clearly proved either directly or circumstantially, by the party making the charge, for the presumption of law is always against bad faith. Stewart v. English, 6 Ind. 176; Hunt v. Elliott, 80 Ind. 245. It is quite true that fraud is a question of fact for the jury, and that it may be inferred from circumstances and need not be proved by direct or positive evidence. But it is nevertheless proper for the court to direct the attention of the jury to the character of the issue, and to remind them, when it involves fraud, turpitude or crime, that the presumption of law is against the charge, and that to overcome the presumption and establish the charge convincing or satisfactory evidence is required. Nothing more than this was done in the present case. This does not vitiate the rule that a preponderance of the evidence is all that is required to maintain the affirmative of the issue in a civil case, nor does it require that...
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