67 P. 854 | Kan. | 1902
The opinion of the court was delivered by
In 1888 Serena J. Jeakins died intestate in Butler county, Kansas, seized of a tract of 480 acres of land lying in that county, and leaving her husband, Edward Jeakins, plaintiff in error, and six children surviving her. One child of the marriage, named Edward, died in 1869, while an infant. After the decease of Mrs. Jeakins, her sister, Parmilly Scheel, was appointed guardian of four of the minor children, and continued so to act until two of said minors arrived at their majority, after which, as such guardian, with the approval of the probate court of said Butler county, she sold and conveyed to her .husband, Carl Scheel, the interest of the remaining two
On November 12, 1894, Mrs. Scheel and her- husband conveyed by warranty deed the entire estate to N. F. Frazier, defendant in error, who took possession thereof on March 1, 1895. The evidence tended to show that after making the conveyance; in March, 1886, to Mrs. Scheel, Mr. Jeakins asserted no dominion over the land, or paid any taxes thereon, or made any claim of ownership to any interest therein,, until shortly before this suit was commenced, in December, 1897.
It satisfactorily appeared from the evidence, and, indeed, was admitted in the' oral argument in this case, that from the relations existing between Mrs. Scheel and her deceased sister, the former must have known of the birth and death of the child Edward at r about the time the same occurred and long before -he ever sought to acquire any title to the lands in
Numerous errors are assigned, which will not be separately considered, because they are all subservient to one governing principle in the case. It must be assumed that Edward Jeakins did tell Mrs. Scheel that his interest in the farm was only one-half and that he would sell such one-half interest to her for $3500. It cannot be said, however, that she bought in reliance upon such assertion, for all the facts and circumstances disprove it, and although a witness on behalf of the defendant, she made no such statement or pretense. On the contrary, the fact that she bought the interest of two of the heirs before dealing with Jeakins clearly shows that she relied upon her own knowledge as to the number and respective interests of the heirs surviving her sister, and that she depended upon her brother-in-law neither for information as to the facts nor for advice as to the law. No claim is made that plaintiff then understood or believed?he had any greater interest in the estate of his wife than that which he conveyed to his sister-in-law. In other words, these parties, acting under a mutual mistake in regard to the law, made a contract; one executed and the other accepted a conveyance, which was dictated in their presence and afterward read over to them, and which fairly expressed the agreement theyjtiad sought to make in their negotiations.
In his work on Equity Jurisprudence, Mr. Pomeroy says:
“Wherever a person is ignorant or mistaken with respect to his own antecedent and existing private legal rights, interests, estates, duties, liabilities, or other relation, either of property or contract or personal status, and enters into some transaction the legal scope and operation of- which he correctly apprehends and understands, for the purpose of affecting such assumed rights, interests, or relations, or of carrying out such assumed duties or liabilities, equity will grant its relief, defensive or affirmative, treating the mistake as analogous to, if not identical with, a mistake of fact.” (2 Pom. Eq. Jur. § 849.)
See, also, Renard v. Clink, 91 Mich. 1, and notes to same case in 30 Am. St. Rep. 460.
The evidence in this case proves beyond doubt that both Jeakins and Mrs. Scheel were mistaken with respect to the former’s interest in the land, and there is no testimony showing or tending to show that the consideration agreed upon for the one-half interest conveyed would have been considered adequate by either of the parties had they known what plaintiff’s
This is the controlling proposition in the case: A court of equity may not say from the evidence adduced, or rather the lack of it, that Jeakins would have accepted $3500 for an eight-fourteenths interest in the land, when such interest would have been worth $500 more if sold upon the same basis as to value as was the one-half interest conveyed. It is as much the duty of a court of conscience to protect a grantor as it is to aid a grantee. We may not take something of value from him without consideration merely because he was ignorant of his ownership, unless it appears that he has done some act to mislead the other party., or that such other party did not have equal knowledge or means of information.
The appellate court, acting upon a view of the case which we cannot approve, reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial, because, it said, the “defense was sufficiently made out by the evidence to require counter-evidence on the part of the plaintiff, ánd the court erred in sustaining the demurrer and in rendering judgment for the plaintiff.” (Frazier v. Jeakins, 9 Kan. App. 850, 62 Pac. 354.)
In the view we have taken, the evidence in the court below was not sufficient to compel or permit a reformation of the deed, and it would have been idle and perfunctory to submit it to the jury. The case as presented here, and in the original pleadings by the defendant, is treated as one of' estoppel rather than a mutual mistake of law. It is apparent, however, that at least two essential elements of estoppel
The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed, and that of the district court affirmed.