Court Opinion

ID: 9825730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 14:01:13.345611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:41:18.827432
License: Public Domain

Smith, J., (on rehearing). It is insisted in the brief filed in support of the petition for rehearing that.there was nothing about the transaction which Rumph could have told the Reed heirs before paying them the $250 and taking receipts from them, and that at the time the deed was delivered to the 'Sewell heirs Rumph was operating under an agreement, not for a mere ten per cent, commission, but one whereby the attorneys in the ease were to have one-half of any amount received, the other half to be divided equally between the Reed heirs and Rumph. An undisputed fact in the case is that, at the time the deed from the Reed heirs to Rumph was executed, nothing was paid by way of consideration, and the deed was made, not to Rumph as an individual, but to him as trustee. The deed from Rumph, as trustee, to the Sewell heirs was executed and placed in escrow on October 2, and one of the attorneys for Rumph on this appeal testified that ‘ ‘ a deed was prepared and executed by Rumph to me.et that requirement (that the claim of the Reed heirs be disposed of) and held in escrow with the lease which had been made by Sewell and by Sewell as guardian for the two minor children. ’ ’ The attorney representing the purchaser of the lease had made the requirement that a quitclaim deed from Ruinph as trustee be secured before the transaction was closed and the money involved ($70,000) paid to Sewell as guardian. The sum which Rumph would receive had not then been agreed upon, yet Rumph admitted that he did not tell the Reed heirs of this requirement and that this quitclaim deed from him had been placed in*escrow, and while they were in ignorance of these facts he obtained acquittances from the Reed heirs by paying George Reed $150 and the two sisters of Reed $50 each. It is also insisted in the brief in support of the motion for rehearing that Bumph has already paid the attorneys in the ease one-half of the consideration received by him for his quitclaim deed, and that he should therefore be required to account to the Beed heirs for only one-half of the remaining one-half, or one-fourth of the total consideration received. The case was tried in the court below, on the theory that Bumph had purchased this property from the beneficiaries of the trust, and that he was under no duty to account to them for any part of the profit which he made. The position now taken, that’Bumph should account for only one-fourth of the consideration received, is therefore an inconsistent one. Moreover, Bumph did not claim or testify that he had ever- stated to either of the two sisters of George Beed that he was acting otherwise than under his proposition to charge ten per cent, of any recovery he might secure. In his cross-examination Bumph was asked this question: “Did you have a conversation with the other heirs, Millie Weaver and Mollie Gaskin, besides George Beed, after you wrote them this proposition of handling this for ten per cent., and you say he came about fifteen days after you wrote this letter—did you go then and have a conversation with those women about it?” and he answered, “No sir.” The attorney representing Bumph did not testify that he was ever employed by Beed in any manner. The attorneys in the case all testified that, when the decree in the first case referred to in the original opinion was discovered, they gave the case up, after advising Bumph that the land could not be recovered. There was therefore no recovery under the' contract of employment of the attorneys by Bumph,-even though Bumph had had the authority to make such, a contract:- Such sum as was recovered was paid after-the attorneys -had advised Bumph that nothing could be recovered, ■and after Bumph, according to his own admission, had advised George Beed that nothing • could be recovered, and after Bumph had refused to pay anything for the title which he later conveyed until, as he testified, he knew what he was going to get for his quitclaim deed. Now, while the testimony does show that Rumph did not know what he would receive for his quitclaim, deed, he knew that any sum he might receive would he paid for the quitclaim deed to the land for which he had paid nothing when it was executed and delivered to him as trustee. Yet, after representing to the Reed heirs that “their claim was no good,” he obtained their receipts without advising them that he had executed a quitclaim deed as trustee, which was then in escrow to be delivered when a satisfactory price was offered him for this deed. We conclude therefore that there is no error in requiring Rumph to settle with the beneficiaries of the trust pursuant to the contract whereby he became trustee for them, and the motion for a rehearing is therefore overruled. Chief Justice McCulloch and Hart, J., dissent.