4 Barb. 279 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1848
There are two reasons why I cannot grant to these plaintiffs the decree they seek, to set aside the whole of this trust deed. First. It was a voluntary conveyance on their part, and they seek to vacate it, not on the ground of a mistake as to matter of fact, but because they were ignorant what would be its legal effect and operation, and had made a mistake in a point of law. Now courts do not undertake to relieve parties from their acts and deeds fairly done on a full knowledge of the facts, though under a mistake of the law. (Lyon v. Richmond, 2 John. Ch. R. 51. Clark v. Dutcher, 9 Cowen, 649. Hunt v. Rousmanier, 8 Wheat. 174; S. C. 1 Peters, 1.) This is the general rule, that a mistake of this character is not a ground for reforming a deed founded on such mistake. But I do not mean to ássert that there are no exceptions to the rule, or that there may not be cases in which a court of equity will relieve against a plain mistake arising from ignorance of the law. The rule prevails in all cases of compromises of doubtful and perhaps in all cases of doubted rights; and especially in all cases of family arrangements; and is relaxed where there is a total ignorance of title, founded in the mistake of a plain and settled principle of law, and in cases of imposition, misrepresentation, undue influence, misplaced confidence, or surprise. And it may safely be affirmed, on the highest authority, as a well established doctrine, that a mere
Allowing all this to be so, (and it is the strength of the case as made out for the plaintiffs,) I see in it nothing to bring it within the exceptions of the rule, but on the other hand, so far as two of the plaintiffs are concerned, a desire to take that which belonged originally to the wives, from a very proper settlement of it upon those wives and their children, and subject it to their own control and a liability to their debts. The claim does not commend itself to the favor of the court, and I cannot allow it, unless compelled to do so by some stern rule of law, which I have not yet found, nor been referred to.
Second. The other ground is that if these limitations over, after the death of the tenants for life, are void, as is claimed, it by no means follows that therefore the trust wholly falls to the ground and the plaintiffs become entitled to have it declared void.
I was a member of the court of errors when the case of Lorillard, the pioneer case under our new statute of uses and trusts, came before that court, and I always regarded with favor the
The bill of complaint does not ask to have those limitations over declared void ; it seeks to set aside the whole trust deed ; to have it decreed that Susan Durand died intestate; that an account may be taken of what has come into the hands of the trustee; and that the residue, after due administration, be paid over to the plaintiffs. This cannot be done, under the view I have taken of this case. Thompson is holding under a trust, valid as yet, and it will be time enough to raise the other questions in the case when he shall claim to hold under one that may become invalid by some future occurrence. But it must
There is only one other point which it is necessary to consider ; to wit, the objection that Mrs. Johnston’s trustees under her post nuptial settlement were not parties to the trust deed executed with Thompson. That marriage settlement was executed nine years before Mrs. Durand’s death, and of course conveyed no title to Mrs. Johnston’s trustees to the inheritance which she thus subsequently derived from her mother. Under the covenant contained in it, she and her husband might have been obliged to convey to them, in a proper manner; but until that was done, the title to, and ownership in, the property thus inherited, was in her and her husband, and it was not necessary to the validity of the trust deed to Thompson that the trustees under her marriage settlement should unite in executing it.
How far the execution of the deed by her and her husband can operate to give one set of trustees a preference over the other, is a question which does not arise here.