Bergen v. Udall

31 Barb. 9, 1858 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 177
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJune 1, 1858
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 31 Barb. 9 (Bergen v. Udall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bergen v. Udall, 31 Barb. 9, 1858 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 177 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1858).

Opinion

Emott, J.

The right to pond and to fish, which was conveyed to the defendant Bergen by Cornelia J. Udall, was cer[20]*20tainly of some and probably of considerable value. Although there is some discrepancy in the statements or opinions of the witnesses on this point, and some of them consider the damming of the stream and construction of a pond an advantage to the property of the plaintiffs, yet this is not inconsistent with the fact that the owner of the adjoining property would prefer to pay a considerable sum, rather than forego the privileges conferred by this instrument. The conduct of the defendants, at the time when the bargain for the purchase and sale of Udall’s farm was made between them, shows that the purchaser considered the right to flow the lands of Cornelia Udall, and to fish in the waters thus ponded, material to his purchase. It was expressly stipulated for and carefully secured under penalty of the loss of $4000 of the purchase money, in case the young lady refused to confirm the agreement when she attained her majority. If it would be going too far, on the present evidence, to say that the parties fixed this amount as the precise price or value of the right, still if it had been greatly disproportionate to that value, Mr. Udall would hardly have consented, while selling his farm, thus to make the payment of $4000 of the purchase money contingent upon the assurance of this privilege by his daughter-^an assurance which he knew of course that he could not legally and ought not to attempt to control. ■ The precise value of the right to be thus obtained, however, is not very important in the decision of the main question now before me; it is sufficient that I cannot help seeing very clearly that in the transaction in question, while this young lady neither paid nor received any price, she was not bargaining for or receiving a benefit, but was parting with something which was her property. She did in fact make a voluntary conveyance of an easement in her lands of very considerable importance to the defendant Bergen, and therefore, if not for other reasons, possessing pecuniary value to her. This conveyance is not alleged by the complaint to have been improperly procured by the grantee, but to have been obtained by the father of this young woman, under circum[21]*21stances which it is said compel this court to set it aside. The plaintiffs’ counsel is correct in saying that it is not material' that the conveyance was not made to the father, the defendant Udall. It was made for his benefit, to a person indicated by him, and by his request and procurement, and the grantee, if not in fact privy to whatever there is in the case to impeach the conveyance, has not pleaded that he is a purchaser without notice, and cannot avail himself of such a defense. There is, therefore, no question of the rights of third parties in the case; and the controversy is to be determined just as if the deed made by Miss Udall had been made to, as it was for the benefit of, her father, If he could not retain it upon the facts of the cause, neither can the actual grantee, Bergen.

This, then, is a voluntary conveyance obtained from a child by her parent within a few days after her arrival at age. She became of age on the 10th and she executed this deed on the 20th of April, 1857.

The protection of persons who are either in a condition of tutelage or dependence, or just emancipated from it, and the rigorous scrutiny of deeds and agreements obtained from such parties by those who occupy such relations of confidence or control towards them, have long formed a recognized head of equity jurisprudence. Without going back through the long series of cases in which the doctrines of courts of equity on these subjects have been illustrated and enforced, it will be sufficient to recite the language of a few recent adjudications and text books of authority in which the rules by which the court acts are clearly laid down.

Judge Story remarks, (Eq. Juris. § 307,) “In this class of cases there is often found some intermixture of deceit, imposition, overreaching, unconscionable advantage or other mark of direct and positive fraud." But the principle upon which courts of equity act in regard thereto, stands, independent of any such ingredients, upon a motive of public policy. These courts will therefore often interfere in such cases, where, but for such peculiar relations, they would wholly abstain from [22]*22granting relief, or grant it in a very modified and abstemious manner.” Again, § 308, “courts of equity do not sit or affect to sit in judgment upon cases as custodes mornm, enforcing the strict rules of morality. But they do sit to enforce what has not inaptly been called a technical morality. They will not arrest or set aside an act or contract merely because a man of more honor would not have entered into it. There must be some relation between the parties which compels the one to make a full discovery to the other, or to abstain from all selfish projects. But when such a relation does exist, courts of equity acting upon this superinduced ground in aid of general morals, will not suffer one party standing in a situation of which he can avail himself against the other, to derive advantage from that circumstance.” The learned commentator applies these principles to transactions between parent and child, with directness and force; and the language which I have been quoting is cited with approval by Mr. Justice Daniel, in delivering the opinion of the supreme court of the United States, in Taylor v. Taylor, (8 How. 199.) In that case a deed from a child to her parents just after her majority, was set aside as a transaction bearing upon its face in false recitals of the deed, and similar statements repeated in a letter signed by her and delivered to her parents with the deed, evidence of the use of fraud, and the presence of undue influence, to procure it. There was no direct evidence of such facts in the case, but the court asserted the presumption which attaches to such cases; in the language of the learned judge, “ transactions subject to presumptions never attaching a priori to contracts between parties standing upon a perfect equality and then declared that the manner of the execution of the deed 'and the facts surrounding it strengthened instead of repelling this presumption, and required of the court to set it aside without direct evidence of fraud. In Archer v. Hudson, (7 Beav. 551,) Lord Langdale, M. B. lays down the rule that a security obtained through the influence of a person standing in loco parentis, from the object of his protection, cannot stand. [23]*23He explains his meaning in this way : If there be a pecuniary transaction between a parent and child, just after the child attains the age of twenty-one years, and prior to what may be called a complete emancipation, without any benefit moving to the child, the presumption is that an undue influence has been exercised to procure that liability on the part of the child; and it is the business and the duty of the party who endeavors to maintain such a transaction, to show that that presumption is adequately rebutted; and that it may be adequately rebutted is perfectly clear. This court does not interfere to prevent even an act of bounty between parent and child, but it will take care (under the circumstances in which the parent and child are placed before the emancipation of the child) that such child is placed in such a position as will enable him to form an entirely free and unfettered judgment, independent of any sort of control.

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Bluebook (online)
31 Barb. 9, 1858 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 177, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bergen-v-udall-nysupct-1858.