Court Opinion

ID: 9601000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:34:52.256084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:14.579403
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion reverses the trial court and directs it to sustain a demurrer to the petition. The rule is well established in this state that:
“As against a demurrer, a petition must be liberally construed and all of its allegations of fact must be taken as true, together with all reasonable inferences therefrom. If any fact stated therein entitles the plaintiff to any relief, the demurrer should be overruled.” Stevenson v. Friend, 196 Okla. 249, 165 P. 2d 133; see, also, McKee v. McKee, 172 Okla. 35, 43 P. 2d 1041.
The petition of the city to set aside the decree of March 6, 1943, specifically denies that the conditions necessary to support the vacation of a part of a plat existed on March 6, 1943, or that they existed at the time the petition was filed. Sec. 524, 11 O.S. 1941, provides as follows:
“If the application shall be by the owner or owners of a portion of such platted tract for the vacation of such portion only, and it shall appear that the portion desired to be vacated has never been actually used for town or city purposes, or that the platted streets and alleys on or across such portion have never been used by the public, or that the public has for more than five years abandoned by such nonuser, or that the same has been enclosed and occupied adversely to the public for more than five years, then the court may vacate such portion of said plat.
These facts were alleged in appellants’ original application to vacate a portion of the plat as existing at that time. It seems to me that a petition to vacated a judgment which vacated a part of a plat of an addition is sufficient against a demurrer when it says that the facts on which the vacation of the plat was based did not actually exist at the time alleged.
The people of the city of Wilson are vitally concerned in and will be injuriously affected by a decree which vacates a portion of a plat of an addition to that city. Their concern arises from the possible closing of streets and alleys in the portion of the plat vacated, and from the possibility that the city will suffer a loss of revenue by the elimination of property taxable for city purposes.
In my opinion, the allegations in regard to the conduct of the city attorney were sufficient to justify the court in its action in overruling the demurrer. N. E. Ticer was city attorney for the city of Wilson when this application for vacation of plat was filed, and continued in that position until 1947, when a new administration went into office. It was Ticer’s duty, as city attorney, to call the attention of the mayor and of the governing board to the proceed-:ngs to vacate the plat of a part of the city, which would take property subject to city taxes and make it untaxable by the city, when he knew of such action and was personally interested in having the plat vacated. His failure to do so constituted constructive or legal fraud, in my opinion. If he called this action to vacate to the attention of the city officials, he should at least be required to say so. In Abernathy v. Huston, 166 Okla. 184, 26 P. 2d 939, we held that when a judgment is taken against a municipality, based on legal fraud, the judgment may be vacated. The decree here vacating the plat, being based on fraud extrinsic and collateral to the record, could itself be vacated within two years of the discovery of the fraud perpetrated in obtaining the original *54judgment oí vacation. City of Guthrie v. McKennon, 19 Okla. 306, 91 P. 851; Caraway v. Overholser, 182 Okla. 357, 77 P. 2d 688.
I think that the following statements also are pertinent:
“An attorney has no capacity to deal for himself in the subject matter of his employment without his client’s knowledge and consent.” Board of County Commissioners of Okfuskee County v. Hazelwood, 79 Okla. 185, 192 P. 217.
And:
“Acts of the attorney to secure advantage to himself at expense of client are prima facie fraudulent.” McGuire v. Wheeler, 300 Pa. 513, 150 A. 882.
To my mind Ticer clearly represented adverse interests in the original action. The rule is well established that an attorney is by virtue of his office disqualified from representing interests which are adverse in the sense that -they are hostile, antagonistic, or in conflict. See 7 C.J.S., Attorney and Client, §47. In this case, action was being taken by certain property owners, including Ticer, to put their property outside the city where it would not pay city taxes. For an attorney not to tell his client of the pendency of the case under such circumstances can be nothing else than legal fraud. Those who joined Ticer in this application to vacate were bound to know his relationship to the city of Wilson.
The petition of the city states that the conditions existing in March, 1943, continued to exist until 1947, when the city had a change of administration. This is not a direct allegation that the city had no notic.e of the vacation proceedings, but I think it may be reasonably inferred from the allegations that the city was not notified of the vacation of the plat applied for and did not discover the fraud until 1947.
The trial court should be sustained instead of being reversed. I dissent.