Case ID: nys_23/html/0200-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      DYKMAbT, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(69 Hun, 115.)
    GEYER v. SNYDER et al.
    (Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department.
    May 8, 1893.)
    Executors—Purchase or Estate—Presumption or Fraud.
    The presumption of fraud in sale by executors of their testator’s estate to themselves is overcome where a legatee voluntarily receives her portion of the proceeds of the sale, executes a full release to them, and remains acquiescent for 13 years before commencing an action to set the bale aside.
    Appeal from special term, Kings county.
    Action by Anna T. Geyer against Edward L. Snyder and Arthur Hurst, as executors of Samuel Engs, deceased, and others, to set aside a sale of their testator’s estate to themselves, and to annul plaintiff’s release given for her portion of the proceeds of such sale. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals.
    Affirmed.
    Argued before BARNARD, P. J., and DYKMAN and PRATT, JJ.
    Edward B. Merrill, for appellant.
    Lewis. Hurst and Arthur Hurst, for respondents.
   DYKMAbT, J.

We have no difficulty in upholding the judgment in this action. The sale of which the plaintiff complains was not absolutely void. It operated to pass the title to the property, but it was voidable, at the instance of the plaintiff. Instead of raising objection to the transaction, however, the plaintiff voluntarily received her portion of the proceeds of the sale, and executed a full release to the executors, which must be construed into an acquiescence in the sale and all the proceedings down to that time. That was in May, 1879, and then the plaintiff remained acquiescent for 13 years before she commenced this action. • Even now the plaintiff offers no evidence to sustain the charges in her complaint of connivance and overreaching, but relies entirely upon the presumption which the law raises against sales by persons occupying a position of trust to themselves, either directly or indirectly. In this case the lapse of time, the acquiescence of thé plaintiff, and her full release, were sufficient to overcome the presumption. The judgment she uki therefore be affirmed, with costs. All concur.