Wiester v. Wiester
Wiester v. Wiester
Opinion of the Court
This is an action to obtain a decree annulling a deed of conveyance by defendant to plaintiff of the undivided one-sixth interest in and to about four hundred and eighty acres of land situate in the county of Pacific, state of Washington; to have it determined that plaintiff has an interest in the firm of Wiester & Co., which on August 1, 1890, was of the value of $7,000; that defendant be decreed to have received said interest in said firm under a trust for the use and benefit of plaintiff; that defendant be held to account therefor, etc. The cause was tried by the court without a jury. Written findings were filed, upon which judgment was entered in favor of the defendant. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.
Appellant objects to the sufficiency of the evidence to support each of the more important facts as found by the court. The form of the objection, in every case except one, is that “there is no evidence that,” etc., followed by the substance of the finding. The exception is where plaintiff avers that “there is no evidence sufficient to produce conviction that the value of the said lands in suit at the time of the said transaction was $50 per acre.” The position assumed by the learned counsel for appellant is: (1) Plaintiff and defendant were blood relations, between whom the most intimate and confidential relations existed. (2) They were partners, and, under sections 2410 and 2411 of the Civil Code, they were trustees for each other, and bound to act in the highest good faith toward each other, and not to obtain any advantage in the partnership affairs by the slightest misrepresentation, concealment, threat or adverse pressure of any kind, and that this status continued and extended to the dissolution and liquidation of the partnership affairs. (3) That, as the evidence is largely documentary, being contained in the depositions of witnesses, the opportunities of this court to judge of its value are as good as those of the court below, and hence that the general doctrine that we will not interfere in a case of substantial conflict of evidence has no application.
We have perused the evidence in the light of these confidential relations between the parties, and from that standpoint find nothing to warrant a reversal of the judgment. If defendant became liable to plaintiff at all, it was . for representing the value of the land at $80 per acre at the time of the sale, either knowing it to be less or not knowing it to be worth as much as that sum. We think (he evidence was sufficient to warrant the court in finding, not only that the defendant believed his statement as to the value of the land, but that it was literally true at the time.
As to the evidence of the value of the land on August 1, 1890, the date of the sale to plaintiff, there were the depositions of five witnesses, residents of the vicinity, and familiar with prices in 1890, who placed the value of the land at from $75 to $150 per acre. Some of these witnesses fortified their opinions of value by describing sales and offers made to purchase lands in the vicinity, but somewhat nearer to the new town, at prices greatly in excess of the value fixed by them on this land. On behalf of plaintiff some seven witnesses were offered, who generally fixed the value of the land at from $5 to $10 per acre; but it is quite apparent that most of them speak of the value in the present rather than in the past, and a number of them say, in substance, that all prices above .those fixed by them were fictitious, related not to intrinsic value, were the effect of a boom, etc. One of them, the manager of a large lumber company, owning large tracts of land, did say: “I consid
Under this state of the evidence, the court would have been, as we think, warranted in finding a higher value of the land than that fixed. Conceding that, in a case like the present, where the testimony as to the value of the land is largely contained in the written depositions of witnesses, we are in as good a position to pass upon its weight and character as the court below, and we still think the findings, and each of them, are correct, and supported by the weight of evidence. There are no errors of law calling for reversal or requiring comment. We recommend that the judgment and order appealed from be affirmed.
We concur: Chipman, C.; Britt, C.
For the reasons given in the foregoing opinion the judgment and order appealed from are affirmed.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- WIESTER v. WIESTER
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Partnership—Good Faith in Dissolution and Liquidation.— Under Civil Code, sections 2410, 2411, partners are bound to act in the highest good faith toward each other, and this continues and extends to the dissolution and liquidation of the partnership affairs. Partnership—Fraud in Settlement of Affairs.—Where, on settlement of a partnership, the withdrawing partner accepted certain land in payment of his interest at $70 per acre, the deed will not be set aside, on the ground of fraud in the settlement, where it was evident that both parties believed the land to be of such value, that it was located at a distance, at a town in which there was at the time a “land boom,” and similar property was then selling at from $100 to $150 per acre.