18 Wash. 466 | Wash. | 1898
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The plaintiff, in March, 1895, brought this action against the executors of her father’s estate for an accounting. She was the only child of her parents John W. and Lucy Sprague, and was born in March, 1844. Her mother died in May of said year, leaving an estate consisting of several tracts of land containing about 500 acres situated in Erie county, Ohio, which under the laws of that state descended to the plaintiff subject to a life estate in her
Her father died at Tacoma in this state on December 24, 1893. The records of the probate court aforesaid fail to show a settlement of his guardianship or what was done with the proceeds of said land, and this action was brought to recover the full purchase price of said tract with interest at six per cent, per annum computable with annual rests from the time of the sale, which would now amount to nianv thousand dollars; the contention being that under the laws of the state of Ohio it was his duty to invest said moneys for her benefit by loaning the same at interest upon certain kinds of security specified. The court found that the value of the tract in question at the time of her father’s death was $1,500 and decreed a recovery for that sum with interest thereon from that time. Each side has appealed from the decree, the plaintiff contending that she was entitled to recover the amount claimed by her with interest as stated and the defendants contending that she should not recover at all, and in any event could recover no more than was allowed by the court. The defendants’ first contention
There was introduced in evidence a deed executed by the plaintiff to her father in October, 1865, and also a deed from her father to her executed on the same day, whereby it seems she conveyed to him her interest in a part of the lands so inherited by her and he conveyed to her his interest in the remainder unsold. The particular tract in controversy which he had previously sold as aforesaid was not described or referred to in either deed.
A third deed was introduced which was executed by her father and his second wife to her on the 25th day of June, 1881, conveying all their right, title and interest in and to the land theretofore deeded by the plaintiff to her father, except a certain eighty acres, which had been sold meanwhile, and the consideration paid to her by him.
The conveyances made in October, 1865, were after the plaintiff had attained her majority, and one of the contentions of the defendants is that these transactions, as well as the later conveyance in 1881, were sufficient to put the plaintiff upon inquiry as to her once having owned the tract now in controversy and of its having been disposed of by her father. The plaintiff contends that as she got no part of said property through the probate court she was not called upon to examine the records of that court, and consequently should not be charged with knowledge of her
We also think her claim became a legal demand in March, 1865, when she became of age, and section 115 of the code (Bal. Code, § 4800), in enumerating actions Avhich may be commenced within three years, provides:
“ 4. An action for relief upon the ground of fraud, the cause of action in such case not to be deemed to have accrued until the discovery by the aggrieved party of the facts constituting the fraud.”
It is conceded by her that any knowledge or notice sufficient to put her upon inquiry would be sufficient to charge her with actual knowledge of the fraud and we think she had such knowledge as stated. After a ward becomes of age he stands in the relation of a creditor to his guardian, and if he fails to bring suit within the time limited by statute the suit is barred. Humphreys v. Mattoon, 43 Iowa, 556; State, ex rel. Coleman v. Willi, 46 Mo. 236; Spicer v. Hockman, 72 Ind. 120; Jones v. Jones, 91 Ind. 378; Harris v. Calvert, 2 Kan. App. 749 (44 Pac. 25).
Reversed and remanded with an order to dismiss the action.
Dunbar, Anders, Gordon and Reavis, JJ., concur.