48 Ala. 75 | Ala. | 1872
This- is a bill in equity, filed by Mrs. Breare, the appellee, against Balkum, the appellant, to compel him to account to her for a certain balance of the proceeds of a certain claim in her favor, against the superintendent of the public schools in the county of Henry in this State, which said Balkum had gotton from her by fraud, falsehood and overreaching her, and collected. On the hearing in the court below, there was a decree in favor of the complainant, Mrs. Breare, in conformity with the prayer of her bill. From this decree the respondent, said Balkum, appeals to this court, and here assigns the following errors:
1. “ The chancery court erred in overruling the demurrer of appellant.
2. “ The chancery court also erred in rendering a decree against the appellant, as shown in the record.”
The main, allegations of the bill may be condensed in substance as follows; The complainant, Mrs. Breare, a regularly employed teacher of one of the public schools in
The bill made proper parties defendant and prayed appropriate relief. A demurrer for want of equity was overruled.
A demurrer to the bill for want of equity admits the truth of all the facts stated with reasonable certainty.— Story’s Eq. PL § 452. The bill alleges that the complainant confided in the statements of the respondent, and that he was a person in whom she had reason to confide; that by his false assertions she had been overreached and defrauded of the sum of $211, and which sum she had been forced by his uneonseientious conduct unwillingly to surrender to him. This is a sufficient allegation of a fraud, particularly where the defrauded party is a female, oppressed with extreme poverty and the cares of a family of helpless children. Courts of equity have wisely refrained from laying down any general definition of fraud, as remediable in that court. Fraud is said to be infinite, and if the jurisdiction is once hampered by prescribed limits, it will be perpetually eluded by new schemes which the fertility of man’s invention would create. — 1 Story Eq. §§ 186, 187, 188,189, and cases cited. Besides, fraud may be presumed from the condition and circumstances of the parties contracting. — Chesterfield v. Jansen, 2 Ves. 155-6; Boney v. Hollingsworth, 23 Ala. 690. If the bargain be such as no man in his senses and not under delusion would make on the one hand, and no honest and fair man would accept on the other, it is liable to be denounced as inequitable and uneonseientious, and held void both at law and in equity. 2 Ves. 155-6, supra ; 1 Story Eq, §§ 189-90. In this case the court can not shut its eyes to the fact that the complainant is a widow, in feeble health and extremely indigent, burdened with the support of a family of children dependent upon her, as she intimates in her bill, in very “ distressing circumstances.” Such a person, so situated, in a Christian country, stripped of all political power for
The second assignment of error upon the decree in the court below is also without sufficient support. It is true, that the answer of Balkum flatly denies many, if not all, o£ the material allegations of the bill. But the evidence of Mrs. Breare and Miss McKay overturns these denials of the answer, and sustains the bill. Besides, the testimony of Kincey makes a much stronger ease than that made in the bill; and it also sustains, in some important particulars, the complainant’s case. From Kincey’s evidence, it may be -fairly inferred that Balkum knew that the funds to pay Mrs. Breare’s account had been received by the superintendent, before he applied to purchase the claim, and that such funds had been deposited with Kimbrough & Co., of which Balkum was a partner, before the purchase. If this was really so, it might happen that he paid Mrs. Breare for her claim with her own funds, at half price. Such a transaction could not be sustained in equity. The partnership of Kimbrough & Co., of which appellant was a member, by accepting the deposit of the school funds in their house, made themselves trustees, in equity at least, to hold it for the use of the beneficiaries, of whom Mrs. Breare was one,
But, however this might have been, the decree of the court below is in conformity with good conscience and the clear preponderance of the proof. It is therefore affirmed at the appellant’s costs in this court and in the court below.