Jones v. Van Doren/Opinion of the Court

by Horace Gray

United States Supreme Court

130 U.S. 684

Jones  v.  Van Doren

The only difference between the original and amended bills is that the first alleges that the defendant Jones took the conveyance of the plaintiff's right of dower upon an express trust for her, whereas the second alleges that he procured the conveyance from her by fraudulent misrepresentations as to the nature of the instrument, creating a trust by operation of law in her favor. The other facts alleged in the two bills are substantially identical. Each bill proceeds upon the ground that the defendant Jones was a trustee for the plaintiff, and that the defendant Van Doren, taking the land from him with notice of all the facts, was affected by the trust; and the object of both bills is the same, to obtain the right of dower of which the plaintiff has been deprived by the acts of the defendants, and to which she was entitled under the laws of Minnesota in force at the time of her husband's death. Pub. St. 1849-58, c. 36, § 1. The amendment was therefore one which the court in the exercise of its discretion might properly allow, and the motion to strike the amended bill from the files was rightly denied. Hardin v. Boyd, 113 U.S. 756, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 771. But we are of opinion that the court erred in sustaining the demurrer to the amended bill. One who by fraudulent misrepresentations obtains a conveyance from the owner of any interest in property, real or personal, is in equity a trustee ex maleficio for the person defrauded, and any one taking the property from such trustee with notice of the fraud and of the consequent trust is affected by the trust. Tyler v. Black, 13 How. 230; Bank v. Insurance Co., 104 U.S. 54; Moore v. Crawford, 130 U.S. 122, ante, 447. When a trustee, dealing with the trust property, together with property of his own, as one mass, conveys part of the whole to a purchaser who takes it for value, in good faith, without notice of the fraud or of the trust, and who therefore acquires a good title, the question how far the rest of the property shall be charged with the trust so as fully to indemnify the person defrauded can only be determined in a court of equity. In the present case, upon the facts alleged in the amended bill, and admitted by the demurrer, the defendant Jones obtained a conveyance of the plaintiff's dower interest by fraud, and held that interest in trust for her. The defendant Van Doren, taking the property with full notice, was equally affected by the fraud, and bound by the trust. Parts of the property, having been conveyed to bona fide purchasers, were beyond the reach of the plaintiff. Full, adequate, and complete relief, either by awarding to the plaintiff her dower in the whole out of the part not so conveyed, or by awarding her dower in that part only, with damages for having been fraudulently deprived of her interest in the rest, could not be had in an action at law. The case made in the bill, therefore, by re son of the fraud, the trust, and the peculiar relief which the conduct of the defendants has made necessary to be given in order fully to indemnify the plaintiff, is clearly within the jurisdiction of a court of equity. Herbert v. Wren, 7 Cranch, 370. The learned judge of the circuit court, in his opinion sustaining the demurrer to the amended bill, recognized that 'the fraud alleged, which creates an impediment to a recovery at law, can be removed by a suit in equity, and her dower obtained,' and that 'equity furnishes the most adequate and complete remedy, and dower is highly favored in that forum.' The ground on which he declined to support the amended bill was that the plaintiff was not entitled to the specific relief prayed for. It is true that the prayer of the bill, being apparently drawn upon the supposition that the plaintiff might be held bound by the mortgage, is chiefly directed towards securing a right to redeem. In that aspect of the case she properly offered to redeem the whole property by paying off the whole mortgage, because she could not, unless at the election of the mortgagee, redeem by paying Collins v. Riggs, 14 Wall. 491; McCabe v. Bellows, 7 Gray, 148. But the general object of the bill is to secure to the plaintiff the dower interest of which she has been defrauded, and the bill contains a prayer for general relief. This is sufficient to enable a court of equity to decree such relief as the facts stated in the bill justify. English v. Foxall, 2 Pet. 595; Tayloe v. Insurance Co., 9 How. 390; Texas v. Hardenberg, 10 Wall. 68.

What has been said furnishes an answer, also, to the argument that the plaintiff's right, if any, is barred by the statute of limitations. The plaintiff is not suing for her dower as such, the right to which accrued in 1863, but for property of which she has been defrauded, and in such a case the statute of limitations begins to run only from the discovery of the fraud. Moore v. Greene, 19 How. 69; Meader v. Norton, 11 Wall. 442; Cock v. Van Etten, 12 Minn. 522, (Gil. 431;) Gen. St. Minn. 1878, c. 66, § 6, cl. 6. Decree reversed, and case remanded, with directions to overrule the demurrer to the amended bill, and to take such further proceedings as may be consistent with this opinion.

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