O'Neile v. Ternes
O'Neile v. Ternes
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This action was brought by Florence O’Heile (appellant) to rescind and set aside a sale of one hundred shares of the capital stock of the Tacoma Carriage & Baggage Transfer Company, a corporation, which were bequeathed to her by John M. Holán, deceased, and which she sold to Mary Ternes before the same was issued to her, and to have said stock restored and issued to her by said corporation. It appears that at the time this stock was sold by plaintiff the defendant .Mary Temes was the wife of John B. Ternes, and that the defendants John B. Temes and George B. Handle were the executors of the last will and testament of the said Stephen M. Holán, deceased, and that the said John B. Ternes and George B. Handle and Helen I. Holán were the administrators of the community estate of said Stephen M. Holán, deceased, and Helen I. Holán, his wife. It also appears that at the time of said sale and purchase of said stock the defendant and respondent John B. Ternes was, and still is, an officer of the Tacoma Carriage & Baggage Transfer Company, and the general manager of its business. All of the above named individuals, as well as the said transfer company, were made defendants in the action. After the plaintiff had introduced her evidence and rested, the trial court, on motion of counsel for defendants, dismissed the action at the costs of plaintiff, and from that. judgment the plaintiff has appealed.
The respondents move to dismiss the appeal on the alleged ground that it does not appear from the notice of
“The appellant in his notice of appeal shall designate with reasonable certainty from what judgment or orders, whether one or more, the appeal is taken, and if from a part of any judgment or order, from what particular part.” Bal. Code, § 6503.
The only objection to this notice is that it designates the judgment appealed from as a judgment entered in the action on the 20th day of March, 1902, whereas the judgment in the record was not filed and entered until the 21st day of March, 1902. The fact is the judgment upon its face shows that it was actually rendered and announced on the 20th day of March. And this court has held that a judgment announced by the court is so far complete as to sustain a notice of appeal although it has not been duly signed and entered. Hays v. Dennis, 11 Wash. 360 (39 Pac. 658). Moreover, there was only one judgment rendered and entered in this cause, and that was designated not only with reasonable, but absolute, certainty in appellant’s notice of appeal. The motion to dismiss the appeal is denied.
The respondents further move this court to strike the statement of facts from the files in this case and affirm the judgment of the lower court, for the alleged reasons (1) that the same was not filed before the service thereof upon the respondents; (2) that the said statement of facts was filed in the superior court eighty-four days after the judgment was entered in the cause, and that at the time of the filing of said statement no order had been obtained or entered extending the time for filing and serving said statement of facts, or application made for an extension of time to file and serve the same; (3) that there is no proper cer
It is conceded by all the parties to this action that the capital stock of the respondent corporation is $40,000, consisting of 2,000 shares of the par value of $20 per share; that Stephen M. Nolan died on or about August
It is insisted by the learned counsel for appellant that the action was dismissed upon a motion for a nonsuit, and that such a motion is only applicable to cases at law tried "by a jury, and, for that reason, if for no other, it was error to grant it. Conceding that the motion for a non-suit, provided for by our statute, may not be strictly applicable to a purely equitable action, it by no means follows that the court may not, in a proper case, dismiss a complaint or proceeding in equity on motion of the defendant. If the allegations of the complaint and the evidence adduced on the part of the plaintiff are such as to require countervailing or explanatory evidence on the part of the defendant, in order to defeat the action, then the latter should be compelled to produce such evidence, and a motion to dismiss, by whatever name it may be designated, should be denied. But where the evidence of the plaintiff plainly shows that he is entitled to no relief, the action may properly be dismissed, even on the court’s own motion. In this instance the motion, as recited in the judgment, was “for judgment dismissing the said action, for the reason that the testimony offered upon the part of the plaintiff was insufficient to grant the plaintiff any relief in this action,” and it would seem that it was at least a proper one for the consideration of the court. It is contended on behalf of the appellant that the court below, in granting this
“The complaint in this action does not state a good and sufficient cause of action of that character. It was never so intended, any more than it was intended to state a good cause of action in trover or conversion. The gist of the cause of action under consideration is misuse of position and opportunity by an executor of an estate, by the president of a company, by a person acting in a fiduciary relation towai’d plaintiff — in other words, a trustee; and the claim to relief is based upon a betrayal of confidence and a violation of trust duties and obligations, coupled with fraud and false representations. The fraud and false representations count principally as makeweights to render the explanation which the trustee is bound, under the legal principles which govern this case, to make the court of equity having the ease under consideration, simply more impossible.”
We have no doubt that there is, in legal contemplation as well as in reason, a clear distinction between the two classes of cases mentioned by appellant’s counsel as to the nature and quality of the proof required on the part of the plaintiff. If the action is an ordinary one by a person in his individual capacity, based on actual fraud, no recovery can be had without satisfactory proof of the fraud alleged. But if it is an action by a cestui que trust against his trustee, the former may, in some cases, recover by simply showing a transaction on the part of the latter indicating a mere failure to perform a duty or obligation resulting from his trust, although no actual fraud was prac
We come now to the consideration of the crucial question in the case, and that is whether, in view of the evidence and the principles of law applicable to cases of this character, the judgment can be sustained either on the theory apparently adopted by the trial court or that urged as the real and legitimate one by counsel for the appellant. It is not practicable to set forth all the evidence in the record, or even to present a satisfactory synopsis of it in this opinion, and we will therefore content ourselves by simply saying that upon the whole case as made by the pleadings and the evidence we are clearly of the opinion that the judgment ought to be affirmed. If appellant’s right of action is in fact based upon the allegedi fraudulent representations made to her by Ternes, the judgment is clearly right for the reason that she frankly and positively testified, as a witness in her own behalf, that all he (Ternes) told her was by letter, and that she did not rely
As to the contention that the respondent Ternes violated his trust duties and obligations as an officer of the transfer company by not apprising appellant of the true condition of the company and its business, and of the value óf its stock, it is perhaps sufficient, merely to observe that no such trust relation as is claimed by appellant ever existed between the latter and Mr. Ternes. The rule recognized and adopted by the modem authorities is tersely stated by a late text-writer, speaking of officers of private corporations, as follows :
“The doctrine that officers and directors are trustees of the stockholders applies only in respect to their acts relating to the property or business of the corporation. It does not extend to their private dealings with stockholders or others, though in such dealings they take advantage of knowledge gained through their official position.” See 21 Am & Eng. Enc. Law (2d ed.), 898, and cases cited. See, also, Carpenter v. Danforth, 52 Barb. 581.
We find no error in the record, and the judgment is therefore affirmed.
Fullerton, O. J., and Mount and Dunbar, JJ., concur.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Florence O'Neile v. John B. Ternes
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- 26 cases
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- APPEAL-NOTICE-DESCRIPTION OF JUDGMENT. When, there was hut one judgment in a cause, which was actually rendered and announced on the 20th of the month, but not filed until the 21st, a notice of appeal designating the judgment appealed from as one entered on the 20th sufficiently complied with the requirements of Bal. Code, § 6503, as to the necessity of designating “with reasonable certainty from what judgment or orders the appeal is taken.” SAME-STATEMENT OF FACTS-SUFFICIENCY-CERTIFICATE. The fact that the certificate of the trial judge to a statement of facts bears no date, does not refer to any pages or exhibits or contain any order referring to copies of exhibits would not render it insufficient, when in form and substance it complies with the requirements of Bal. Code, § 5060, by certifying “that the matters and proceedings embodied in this statement are matters and proceedings occurring in this cause and that the same are hereby made a part of the record herein” and “that the same contains all the material facts, matters and proceedings heretofore occurring in this cause and not already a part of the record therein.” SAME-INCORPORATION OF DEPOSITIONS AND WRITTEN EVIDENCE. The failure to attach depositions and other written evidence to the statement of facts as provided by Bal. Code, § 5059, would not warrant the striking of such matters from the statement, where copies had been read and offered in evidence and were incorporated in the statement as a part thereof, under the certificate of the judge that they were matters occurring in the cause and were thereby made a part of the record therein. SAME —• TIME OF SETTLEMENT PRESUMPTIONS AS TO REGULARITY. A statement of facts filed after the thirty days allowed by statute, but within the sixty days additional permitted by Bal. Code, § 5062, will not be stricken from the files because no order of the court fixing the time for settling and certifying same is shown in the record, in the absence of any showing of proposed amendments to the statement, since, under Id., § 5058, the statement is, in such cases, deemed agreed to and may be certified by the judge at any time at the instance of either party. TRIAL-EQUITABLE ACTION-MOTION FOE NONSUIT. The dismissal of an action of equitable cognizance upon a motion for nonsuit would not constitute error, although technically a misnomer of the proper procedure in such cases, if the evidence of plaintiff showed she was entitled to no relief, and that a dismissal was warranted. EXECUTORS-RELATIONS TOWARD LEGATEES-FRAUDULENT PURCHASE OF LEGACY. . The executor does not sustain such a trust relation to a legatee under the will as to render fraudulent per se the purchase by him from the legatee of the property acquired under the will, and only in case of actual fraud could such a sale be set aside. CORPORATE OFFICERS-DUTIES TO STOCKHOLDERS-SALE OF STOCKS. The purchase by an officer of a corporation of corporate stock from a stockholder is not such a transaction as falls within the trust relations of the parties, as the trust relation of officers and directors extends only to the corporate business and property of the company, and not to their private dealings with stockholders.