Court Opinion

ID: 9810293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:45:44.64506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:33.753878
License: Public Domain

Walker, J.,
concurring: I cannot better express my concurrence in the opinion of the Court than by quoting at' some length, -though not literally, from the most excellent treatise of Pomeroy on Equity Jurisprudence. The doctrine is fully settled by an unbroken line of decisions, extending to the present day, that, with one remarkable exception, the jurisdiction of equity exists in and may be extended over every case of fraud, whether the primary rights of the parties are legal or equitable, *205and whether the remedies sought are equitable or simple pecuniary recoveries, and even though courts of law have a concurrent jurisdiction of the case and can administer the same kind of relief. The English judges have virtually said that in every case of fraud the remedy at law, either from the nature of the legal relief itself or from the methods of legal procedure,, is inadequate. The only question, therefore, presented to an English court is, not whether the equitable jurisdiction exists, but whether it should be exercised. 2 Pom. Eq. Jur. (3d Ed.), sec. 912. The marked exception to the jurisdiction referred to in the foregoing paragraph is that of canceling wills obtained by means of fraud. In a- few very early decisions the court of chancery seems to have asserted such a jurisdiction. For more than a century, however, and through a long series of cases, the judges have either refused to exercise the jurisdiction or denied its existence; and it has finally been settled by the tribunal of last resort that, under their general jurisdiction, courts of equity have no power to entertain suits for the purpose of setting aside or canceling a will on the ground that it was procured by fraud. The same rule has been generally adopted in the United States. Under the common-law system, the validity of wills of real estate could only be tested in an action at law; that of wills of personal estate was established by the decree of the ecclesiastical court in proceedings for probate. Under the statutory system generally prevailing in this country, both wills of real estate and wills of personal estate are admitted to probate; in some of the States the decree of the probate court is conclusive with respect to both kinds; in other States it is conclusive only with respect to those of personal property. 2 Pom. Eq. Jur. (3d Ed.), sec. 913. Although an entire will cannot be set aside on account of fraud, yet a particular devise or bequest may be impressed with a trust in favor of a third person, for whom the testator’s beneficial intentions have been fraudulently intercepted and prevented by the actual devisee or legatee; and in the same manner the land descending to the heir may be impressed with a trust, where he has prevented the testator from making an intended devise by fraudulently representing to the testator that his intention will be carried into effect towards the beneficiary as fully as though the devise were made. Where a probate is obtained by fraud, equity may declare the executor, or the other person deriving title under it, a trustee for the party defrauded. The jurisdiction in the case of intended testamentary gifts fraudulently prevented extends to other analogous cases. Where one person has been prevented by fraud from doing an intended act for the benefit of another, equity may relieve the disappointed party by *206establishing bis right, as though the act had been done, and by confirming the title which he would thereby have acquired. Conversely, when instruments have been fraudulently suppressed or destroyed for the purpose of hindering or defeating the rights of others, equity has jurisdiction to give appropriate relief by establishing the estate or rights of the defrauded party. 2 Pom. Eq. Jur. (3d Ed.), sec. 919. Mr. Pomeroy further says: There is still a third aspect of the remedial action of equity which should be accurately understood, since it lies at the foundation of much of the dealing of the court of chancery with the legal estate and rights, and. especially those conferred by the positive provisions of statutes. I mean the most important principle, that equity acts upon the conscience of a party, imposing upon him a personal obligation of treating his imoperty in a manner very different from that which accompanies and is permitted by his mere legal title. Whenever a legal estate is, by virtue of some positive rule of either the common or statute law, vested in A, but this legal estate in A is of itself a violation of some settled equitable doctrines and rules, so that B is equitably entitled to the property or to some interest in or claim upon it, equity grants its relief and secures to B his right, not by denying or disregarding or annulling or setting aside A’s legal estate, but by admitting its existence, by recognizing it as wholly vested in A, and then by working upon A’s conscience and imposing upon him the duty of holding and using his legal title for B’s benefit; so that, in the ordinary language of the courts, he is treated as a trustee for B. One or two familiar examples will illustrate the working of this fundamental principle. A testator has given certain lands to A by a will, properly executed, but A procured the devise by wrongful representations made to the testator, and the lands should, by the doctrines of equity, belong to B. The statute of wills, however, is peremptory in its prescribed mode of executing a will; there can be no will without conforming to the statutory requirements. Equity does not attempt to overrule the statute; it admits the validity of the will and the legal title vested in A, but, on account of A’s wrongful conduct in procuring the devise to himself, it says that he cannot conscientiously hold and enjoy that legal title for his own benefit, and imposes upon his conscience the obligation to hold the land for B’s benefit as the equitable owner thereof; and then arises the further obligation upon his conscience to perfect and complete B’s equitable ownership by a conveyance. 1 Pom. Eq. Jur., sec. 430. Lord Westbury said, in McCormick v. Grogan, L. R., 4 H. L., 82, 97, that “A court of equity has from a very early period decided that even an act of Parliament shall not be used as an instrument *207of fraud; and if in the machinery of perpetrating a fraud, an act of Parliament intervenes, the court of equity, it is true, does not set aside the act of Parliament, but it fastens on the individual who gets a title under that act, and imposes upon him a personal obligation, because he applies that act as an instrument for accomplishing a fraud. In this wáy the court of equity has dealt with the statute of wills and the statute of frauds.” Although Lord Westbury here speaks only of a case where the equitable rights of one person arise from the frauds of another who has thereby obtained the legal estate, yet the principle applies, whatever be the grounds and occasion of the equitable interest and claims which are asserted in opposition to the one having the legal title. 1 Pom. Eq. Jur., 431.
These authorities would seem to sustain the very proposition involved in this case, that while a court of equity has no jurisdiction to invalidate a will or to set aside a probate, except, perhaps, in the latter case, when fraud in the procurement of the probate appears, because of the exclusive jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court and, under our system, the clerk of the Superior Court, in such matters, it will treat the will as valid and work out the equity of any party justly entitled as a beneficiary, being the real object of the testator’s bounty, by decreeing the person who has acquired the legal estate by any fraudulent method or contrivance which defeated the testator’s intention as a trustee for such beneficiary. It does not assume jurisdiction to pass upon the validity of the will, which belongs to another tribunal, but, giving full scope to the jurisdiction and recognizing its plenary power in such cases, proceeds to exercise its own jurisdiction in harmony therewith, and acts solely upon the conscience of the party who has committed the fraud, compelling him to surrender, under its process, his ill-gotten gains.