69 Md. 286 | Md. | 1888
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Ln the month of February, eighteen hundred and seventy-three, the appellant duly bonded as the guardian of the appellee. At that time the latter was hut thirteen years of age, without father or mother, the one having died in eighteen hundred and sixty-seven and the other five years thereafter. McConkey, who was the husband of Oockey’s eldest sister, ivas appointed executor of the will of Mrs. Cockey, and in that capacity stated an account in the Orphans’ Court of Baltimore County showing the balance due to the appellee by Mrs. Cockey, the former guardian. The subsequent settlement of her estate by McConkey placed in his hands, as guardian, nearly seven thousand dollars additional. The appellee after the death of his mother resided with the appellant, and, with the exception of brief intervals, continued to reside there until after his majority. Eo guardian accounts seem to have been stated in the Orphans’ Court until some months after the settlement made by McConkey with Cockey upon the latter attaining his majority, which occurred on the seventeenth day of October eighteen hundred and eighty. On the first day of the following month McConkey made up a statement of his accounts showing an apparent balance of ten thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars and thirty cents due to
There is no room to question or to controvert, at this day, the well settled and salutary principles which govern Courts of equity in dealing with a case like this. “They will not pérmit transactions between guardians and wards' to stand, even when they have occurred after the minority has ceased, and the relation become thereby actually ended, if the intermediate period be short, unless the circumstances demonstrate, in the highest sense of the term, the fullest deliberation on the part of the ward, and the most abundant good faith, (uberrima fides) on the part of the guardian.” 1 Story Eq.} sec. 317. ’Where the transaction
It is further shown by the evidence that McConlcey did not receive the offer of sixty dollars a share for said stock, as represented by him; but, that on the contrary, shortly before he assigned it to his ward he had made unsuccessful efforts to sell it at as low a figure as thirty dollars per share. The books of the company disclose the fact that his statements to his ward as to the reason for and the manner of his having originally acquired the stock, were equally untrue ; and that the actual fact was that he purchased these shares of stock from the very witness to whom allusion has been made as the holder of one thousand shares. The appellant knew that the company had never paid a dividend. He not only had no authority to purchase this stock, but he procured it in open disregard of an order of the Orphans' Court directing him to invest the money quite differently. It may have been, and most probably was done to enable himself to become 'the company's business manager. It is not shown how much he paid for this stock, and although his good faith and his integrity were both assailed by the bill of complaint and most directly involved in this
He had misappropriated his ward’s money, and when the time came for him to settle, he was without the means to do it. Discovery was imminent and there was danger of his bond being put in suit. In this dilemma he used his position, his power over, his influence with, and the hold he had' upon the confidence of, this inexperienced youth to force upon him this worthless stock of a purely speculative concern; and to exact a formal release to himself from all accountability whatever. So far from this conduct exhibiting that rigid and signal good faith demanded in such cases, it furnishes strong and convincing evidence of the most reprehensible fraud. He has made no effort to show that the settlement with his ward was fair, or that it was honestly made. Surely a Court of equity cannot permit such a transaction, so ruinous and so unfair and unjust, to he sustained.
The hill was filed ^exactly two years after the execution of the release. This delay has been relied on as a bar to the right of the appellee to relief. Laches is relative. It depends on the facts of each case. Canton, et al. vs. McGraw, 67 Md., 591. For some considerable time after the execution of the release, McConkey continued to lull the appellee into the belief that the stock was valuable and it was not until late in eighteen hundred and eighty-two, after the return of the appeliee to Baltimore from West Virginia, that he took steps to investigate the matter. During his stay in West Virginia Cockey was led, by the letters of McConkey, to still credit the latter’s representations. The bill
Decree affirmed.