White v. Harrigan
| Decision Date | 25 November 1919 |
| Docket Number | 9427. |
| Citation | 186 P. 224,77 Okla. 123,1919 OK 352 |
| Parties | WHITE et al. v. HARRIGAN et al. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Jan. 6, 1920.
Syllabus by the Court.
Generally speaking, a misrepresentation of law affords no grounds of redress or relief on the theory that all men are supposed to know the law. It is not universally true, however, that a misrepresentation of the law is not binding upon the party who made it. Where one has superior means of information professes a knowledge of the law, and thereby obtains an unconscionable advantage of another who is ignorant and has not been in situation to become informed, the injured party is entitled to relief as well as if the representation had been made concerning a matter of fact.
The record examined, and held that the representations made constituted fraud.
Error from District Court, Carter County; W. F. Freeman, Judge.
Action by E. A. Harrigan and others against S. C. White and others. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants bring error. Affirmed.
Potterf & Gray, of Ardmore, for plaintiffs in error.
H. A Ledbetter and F. M. Adams, both of Ardmore, for defendants in error.
In this opinion E. A. Harrigan and others will be referred to as plaintiffs, and S. O. White and others as defendants; they so appearing in the trial court.
This is a suit by the plaintiffs to cancel a deed, alleged to have been secured from them by fraud, and certain other deeds and instruments of writing, for reason the same were a cloud on the title to the lands involved in this suit. The judgment of the trial court was in their favor, from which judgment an appeal to review the same has been taken to this court.
A deraignment of title of the parties to this suit is as follows: Ed Punneo in 1911, at a sale of the unallotted lands of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, purchased the lands in question, and in 1916 received a patent therefor. On November 20, 1912, Ed Punneo by warranty deed conveyed the land to W H. McCown, and on December 7, 1915, McCown conveyed the same by warranty deed to E. A. Harrigan, one of the plaintiffs in this suit. On December 2, 1911, Ed Punneo executed to his brother, Charley Punneo, an instrument in writing as follows:
Indorsed as follows:
As this instrument is indorsed a "Bill of Sale," we will hereafter refer to it as such.
On June 6, 1916, Charley Punneo by warranty deed conveyed the lands to S. O. White, one of the defendants, and Hannah Punneo, his mother. On August 25, 1916, E. A. Harrigan and his wife, Nora Harrigan, by quitclaim deed conveyed the land to S. O. White, and on the same day Hannah Punneo by quitclaim deed conveyed the land to S. O. White. On September 27, 1916, S. O. White by quitclaim deed conveyed the land to his father-in-law, J. B. Leach, who on the same day executed to the attorney of S. O. White a power of attorney.
This suit is to cancel the deed of August 25, 1916, on the grounds of fraud, and to cancel the bill of sale, the deed from Punneo to White and Punneo, the deed from Punneo to White, the deed from White to Leach, and the power of attorney executed by Leach, for the reason that these instruments were a cloud upon the title of plaintiffs to the lands involved.
The bill of sale was not acknowledged by a notary, was not indexed or recorded as is required of a real estate mortgage, and was placed among the files of the chattel mortgages. The plaintiff alleges that he therefore knew nothing of the bill of sale; that he purchased the lands in good faith, paying a valuable consideration.
There is no attempt to explain the irregularities of the bill of sale. None of the Punneos appeared as a witness. One witness did testify that in a conversation with White he told him that one of the Punneos said that Ed Punneo was indebted to J. S. Mullen for rent, and the bill of sale given to the brother was to place the property beyond an execution.
At the time the Harrigans executed their deed to White there was paid him by White the sum of $620 which he borrowed from Leach, one of the other defendants. White also assumed and agreed to pay a mortgage on the land in the sum of $1,500.
In this suit a tender back of $630 was made in open court and refused by defendants. It is pleaded that Leach and the attorney to whom the power of attorney was granted were either connected with the fraud or knew of the fraud in the securing of the deed on August 25, 1916, from the Harrigans to White.
The only contest before the trial court was whether there was fraud in the securing of the deed above referred to from Harrigan to White. The history of the case is as follows:
Oil was discovered in Carter county, and developments were being had in the vicinity of the land involved, and the land possessed a prospective oil value. Charley Punneo in 1916, nearly five years after the bill of sale had been executed to him, went to White, one of the defendants, and told him of this old bill of sale which was hidden away in the files of the chattel mortgages of the county clerk of Carter county, though he had remained silent for nearly five years knowing his brother had sold the lands to other parties. White agreed to secure the land for him under this bill of sale for one-half of same. White was not an attorney, but a clerk in the store of his father-in-law, J. B. Leach. White procured an attorney, the one to whom his father-in-law executed the power of attorney.
Charley Punneo executed to White and to his mother, Hannah Punneo, the deed of June 6, 1916; no consideration therein passing. Punneo was to be the owner of one-half of the land, and White and his mother, Hannah Punneo, was to hold in trust for him this one-half. This deed of June 6, 1916, was placed of record on the day of its execution. It so happened that Harrigan was on a trade with other parties about this date, agreeing to sell 30 acres for $50 an acre, which would pay off the mortgage then on the land, leaving him the other portion clear of debt, but, when the time came to close out the deal, this deed from Punneo to White and Punneo was found of record defeating the sale. Harrigan commenced suit at once to cancel the deed from Charley Punneo to White and Hannah Punneo dated June 6, 1916, as a cloud on his title, and while this suit was pending the transactions between White and the Harrigans in regard to the execution of the deed of August 25, 1916, from Harrigan to White, took place.
The history of this matter is as follows: White, who lived at Comanche, accompanied by his lawyer, went to the justice of the peace who prepared the bill of sale between the Punneos and secured from him an affidavit to that effect sworn to before a notary. They then went to the office of the county clerk of Carter county, and under the seal of that office secured a certified copy of the bill of sale. Then with blank deeds they went forth to prove there was good title in them, not to the attorney who had filed the suit to cancel off the White-Punneo deed, but to the defendant himself. He and his attorney drove out in an automobile to the western part of Carter county first to the home of the father of Ed Harrigan, having gone there by mistake, and then, accompanied by the father, went to the home of E. A. Harrigan. This is the time in which the deed of August 25, 1916, from the Harrigans to White was secured.
It is alleged that the Harrigans were ignorant, uneducated, and illiterate persons not versed in business, but having to rely on others for advice as to business matters, and that White was a shrewd business man.
There was evidence introduced as to the education and experience of E. A. Harrigan-"that he had gone to school some five or six months; had got as high as McGuffey's Third Reader his education being at a school in Board's bottom between the towns of Nebo and Daugherty in what is now Murray county, Okl." He was 24 years of age, had a wife and a baby, and had followed farming as a vocation, and had been making his own living since he was 15 years of age. On the other hand, there was dealing with him to secure his deed to the...
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