84 Miss. 602 | Miss. | 1904
delivered the opinion of the court.
No principle of equity jurisprudence is more firmly established than that, where fraud is relied on as a basis of relief sought from a chancery court, the facts of which the charge of fraud is predicated must be specifically stated with full definiteness of detail. No general averment of a fraudulent course of business, and no bare statement of a corrupt design on the part of the defendant, is sufficient. The acts themselves which are claimed to be fraudulent must be clearly set out. It must further appeal’, by definite averment, in what manner the fraudulent acts wrought injury to the complainant. Fraud cannot be inferred, but must be distinctly charged, and with such fullness and precision that a court of chancery would be enabled to grant full and complete relief and redress should the bill of complaint be taken as confessed. A court of equity, from a mere vague and indefinite statement that a certain course of conduct was in pursuance of a fraudulent scheme, will not infer fraud on the part of the defendant, and consequent injury to the complainant. M. & C. R. R. Co. v. Neighbors, 51 Miss., 412; Watts v. Patton, 66 Miss., 54 (5 South., 628); McInnis v. Wicassett Mills, 78 Miss., 52 (28 South., 725).
In the bill of complaint in the instant ease, there is no compliance with the rule of equity pleading announced. While many vague, uncertain, and indefinite charges of a general character are made, averring that in the entire course of business between complainants and the defendant the defendant was actuated by a corrupt and fraudulent design, no specific fraudulent acts
Tn this case the hill shows affirmatively that the mortgage was legal, that the debt secured thereby was due, aud that the complainants, acting under legal advice, decided to make no further payment on the first mortgage debt, and voluntarily refrained from making any effort to prevent the sale for the satisfaction thereof; and there is neither averment nor proof that the mortgagee was influenced by any other motive than a desire to collect the money due. To disturb a sale made under such circumstances because of the fact that the substituted trustee and a junior mortgagee expected or intended to profit thereby would be an unwarranted extension of the legal principles applicable to such cases. From this view it is not material whether the junior mortgage was in fact for a just and legal indebtedness or not. Appellant purchased at a foreclosure of a senior mortgage at a sale regularly and legally held, and appellees cannot now set aside this sale for the purpose solely of having the property resold, with the bare hope that it might realize more than is justly owing thereon. We are unable to see from the facts disclosed by the bill of complaint how the fact that a junior mortgage rested on the property at the time of the sale could in any manner have prejudiced the rights of appellees. Whether fraudulent in whole or in part, it could in no legal way have deterred bidders, for the reason that the purchaser under a senior mortgage sale takes to the exclusion of all junior incumbrances. The bill of complaint shows no cause of action which would authorize a court of chancery to set aside the sale of the land under the circumstances detailed, and the demurrer should have been sustained.
Wherefore the decree is reversed, the demurrer sustained, and the case remanded, with leave to amend within sixty days from filing of mandate in court below.