44 Ind. App. 405 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1909
Lead Opinion
This was a proceeding brought by the appellants against the appellees, to compel an accounting by ap
Each of the defendants filed separate paragraphs of answer. Appellants’ demurrer to the second and third paragraphs of each of the answers was overruled, and exception reserved, and this ruling of the court presents the only question raised upon the appeal.
These pleadings set forth the following state of facts: John F. Bruning was the father of appellant Clara Copeland, and of appellee William H. Bruning. They were his only children. John F. Bruning died, testate, in October, 1891, seized in fee of certain real estate, which is described in the pleadings. By his will he devised certain parcels of the real estate to William H. Bruning and Nicholas HorufS, as trustees,
“upon trust, during the period of the married life of my daughter Clara, wife of William M. Copeland, to apply the whole of the annual income, after paying taxes, insurance and necessary repairs of said trust premises, for or toward the support and benefit of my said daughter and her husband, and I authorize said trustees, and the survivor of them and their successor or successors in said trust, to delegate the management, repair and collection of rents from and application thereof to my said daughter Clara and her husband by a written instrument, to be executed by said trustees and my said daughter and her husband in duplicate, one copy thereof for them and the other for said trustees, which shall exonerate said trustees from any and all liability whatever in reference to the care, repair, management and renting of said trust property and the collection and application of the rents thereof during the period of time specified in such written instrument, which may be renewed from time to time by written indorsement thereon signed by said parties. When my said daughter shall become a widow, or when she, her husband and my son William H. Bruning shall jointly, by an instrument in writing, request said trustees, or the survivor of them or their successor or successors in said trust, to convey and transfer any portion or all of said*408 trust property to my said daughter Clara Copeland, said trustees shall in such event at once convey the same to her in fee simple by deed, in which said written request shall be recited, and such deed of conveyance shall vest the title to the real estate so conveyed to her in fee simple free from said trust.”
The will appointed appellee William H. Bruning as executor. Said will was duly probated, and appellee William H. Bruning duly qualified as executor. After the will was probated and the executor had qualified, the appellants conveyed to appellee William II. Bruning, by warranty deed, the premises mentioned and described in that provision of the will creating the trust in favor of the appellants, which deed was executed by said parties to said Bruning and received by him for the purpose of securing and indemnifying him against a liability on account of becoming surety for Mrs. Copeland upon certain notes. After-wards, in July, 1893, the appellants commenced a suit in the Jefferson Circuit Court against appellee William H. Bruning for the partition of all of said real estate, which was, upon the petition of said Bruning, removed to the United States Circuit Court for the District of Indiana. In the complaint it was averred that John P. Bruning had died intestate, the owner in fee simple of said premises and other lands, leaving appellant Clara Copeland and appellee William H. Bruning as his sole heirs at law; that the execution of the deed last mentioned, from appellants to appellee Bruning, was procured by fraud, and that it was given to secure a debt. The appellants prayed a partition of the land, that the deed be declared a mortgage, and that an accounting be had between the parties.
To this complaint appellee Bruning answered, admitting the averments with reference to the relationship of the parties, the death of John P. Bruning, and that at the time of his death he owned the premises in fee simple; admitting the execution of the deed from appellants to said appellee, and that the deed was intended to secure said appellee as
Afterwards, in June, 1895, appellee Bruning filed a cross-complaint against the appellants, alleging that John P. Bruning died testate; that by his will he devised the land in question in the manner set forth in the answer theretofore filed, a copy of the will being made a part of the cross-complaint; that the execution to him by appellants of the deed for said premises, as set up in the original complaint and answer, and as therein also alleged, was intended as a mortgage to secure said appellee on account of his suretyship for appellant Clara Copeland on certain notes which it was averred he was compelled to and did pay; that there existed an indebtedness against the estate of the testator which the personal estate was insufficient to pay, and which was paid by appellee Bruning; that such indebtedness was a charge upon all of the real estate of the testator; that said appellee had paid taxes upon the trust property, amounting to a certain sum, and praying a foreclosure of said mortgage, and a decree of court charging a certain portion of the indebtedness and the taxes paid by him as a lien upon said trust property, and that said premises be sold to pay and discharge the sums so due him.
Upon the application of the appellees, a receiver was appointed, to receive the rents and profits of the premises pending said litigation. In said proceedings a decree was entered in favor of the appellees and against the appellants on all the issues therein presented, and a decree entered charging said trust property with the sums found due to appellee Bruning on said mortgage, taxes, and other matters claimed to be due to him against said property, and foreclosing all of appellants’ right, title and interest therein, and directing the sale of said premises to pay the amount found due to said appellee; that, in pursuance of said decree, the premises
It is contended by appellee Bruning that the proceedings and decree in the federal court are a conclusive adjudication of all matters sought to be determined in this proceeding, and a complete estoppel against the appellants’ waging the same. Appellants, on the other hand, contend that such decree and proceedings are not such estoppel, for the reason that the appellees were not parties to the proceedings in the federal court in their capacity as trustees of the estate devised to them by the will of John F. Bruning; that is, that in appellee Bruning’s cross-complaint against the appellants, to foreclose his alleged lien upon said trust property, he failed to make himself a party defendant thereto in his capacity as trustee, and that therefore the trust is not bound by the adjudication; that the decree of the court in that cause can only be considered res adjudicata against the parties in the right and capacity in which they appear in that court.
The appellees contend that, on account of the matters set up in their respective answers, the trust, so far as appellants are concerned, and all their rights under it, has terminated.
This last case is cited and relied upon by the appellants. We think it strongly in point in support of the proposition before announced. In that case the testator by his will bequeathed an estate valued at $150,000, consisting principally of invested funds, to a trustee named in the will, to be by him held and managed, charging the trustee with the duty of collecting the income thereof, holding it as part of the trust estate, paying to his only daughter from such income an annuity of $3,500 and no more, and providing that upon the death of his daughter the trust estate should go to her children, if she left any surviving, and in case she died without issue or their descendants surviving then the trust estate to go to his heirs at law. The trustee qiialified as such, but, instead of executing the trust, turned over all the trust property to the daughter and her husband, who executed releases
Here, the acts of the appellants in conveying the trust estate to the trustee, to secure him as indorser for them, were as effectually a release of any obligation upon him to account for rents, as though the instrument, in place of its being in the form of a deed, had been in the form of a release of all obligations to account for such rents and profits; and the decree of the federal court, to 'which they were parties, operated upon the appellants as an estoppel personally to assert any right to the rents and income of the trust property, as effectually as would a formal release.
In this ease appellants make no pretense of appearing “impersonally, ’ ’ as representatives of the trust, as the appellant in Woodbridge v. Bockes, supra, assumed to do, but appear personally, and in right of a personal beneficial interest they claim in the trust property. Not only are the appellants appearing in this case in their personal capacity, and to en
In this ease the decree entered by the court below is in nowise binding upon the trust estate, but it is binding on appellants, and had a decree been entered in favor of appellants it would have been binding and operative against the appellees personally. The appellants would have been entitled, under the facts stated, not only to an accounting of rents, but to a personal judgment against the appellees in their favor for whatever sum such accounting would show was due to them on account of rents of the trust property which they had collected, and to which the appellants were entitled.
We conclude that, as against the appellants, the decree of the federal court a.nd the sale of trust property thereunder effectually terminate the trust which appellants seek to enforce, and estop appellants from asserting any right to re
The judgment of the court below is affirmed.
Rehearing
On Petition for Rehearing.
In appellants’ petition for rehearing it is! claimed that the judgment of the court rests upon a misconception of the facts as they appear in the record, and it is asserted that the deed executed by the appellants to appellee Bruning, and which was held to be a mortgage and foreclosed as such by the federal court, was not executed, as the court states in its opinion, subsequent to the probate of the will of John F. Bruning, but was executed seven years before the probate of the will.
The court’s attention is called to no place in the record where the date of the execution of this deed appears. It was manifestly not executed prior to the execution of the will, or the death of the testator. The court was in error about the deed’s having been executed subsequent to the probate of the will. The will, it seems from the facts presented in the record, was offered for probate in the year 1893, and was followed by litigation that extended until 1898, when it was finally admitted to probate; and it seems that the deed in question was executed sometime pending this litigation, but this fact does not in anywise change the legal aspects of the questions presented by the record.
There is no lack of harmony between the decision of this court and the federal court, and we think there are no grounds justifying this court in granting appellants’ petition for a rehearing, and the same is overruled.