Boehmer v. Silvestone

174 P. 1176, 95 Or. 154
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 10, 1918
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 174 P. 1176 (Boehmer v. Silvestone) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boehmer v. Silvestone, 174 P. 1176, 95 Or. 154 (Or. 1918).

Opinion

McBRIDE, C. J.

This was a suit for an accounting, in which it was charged that defendant Julius Silvestone, being the trustee for plaintiff of a certain trust of $5,000 bequeathed to him by his grandmother, had fraudulently conspired with defendant Fouts to waste, dissipate and misuse such fund, and praying for the removal of Silvestone as trustee; for a discovery of all the dealings of defendants with such fund; for an accounting by Silvestone, in which he should be required to pay the same into court; for the appointment of a new trustee, and for general equitable relief. The defendants, who are both attorneys at law, appeared separately and upon the trial a decree was rendered dismissing* the case without prejudice.

The complaint, which is too lengthy to be reproduced here, charged in substance that Mary Boehmer, the grandmother of plaintiff, died in 1908, leaving a will whereby she bequeathed to Jacob Boehmer, plaintiff’s grandfather, all her property, subject, however, to a trust in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $5,000, which should be held in trust for plaintiff until he should arrive at the age of 30 years, and providing that in no event was he to receive the legacy until he had attained that age, and further providing that Jacob Boehmer should hold the interest of plaintiff during the lifetime of said Jacob Boehmer, and that after his death a trustee should be appointed to hold and manage such fund paying over the income of said property to plaintiff at stated periods; that Jacob Boehmer died in 1912, and that prior to June 20, 1913, the estates of both Jacob and Mary Boehmer were settled up and Julius Silvestone was appointed by the County Court trustee of said fund and took possession thereof. That after plaintiff had attained the age of [158]*15821 years and while he was still uninformed as to his exact interest in said estates, he went to the defendants who occupied offices together as attorneys at law, and inquired of Silvestone if there was any method by which he could obtain possession of the trust fund before attaining the age of 30 years; that Silvestone referred him to Fouts, who told him that for a fee of $1,000 he could obtain the money, the scheme being that plaintiff should jointly with Fouts execute a note for $5,000, payable in 1923 to Silvestone as trustee, and also a note to Fouts for $4,000, payable in 1923, and should insure his life for the sum of $5,000 in favor of Silvestone as trustee as security for the joint note, and that thereupon Silvestone should pay over the $5,000 to Fouts, who in turn was to pay over $4,000 to plaintiff. The complaint alleges the carrying out of such arrangement so far as the execution of the notes is concerned, but avers that plaintiff is not informed as to how much of said fund was paid over to Fouts, and charges that Fouts had paid over to him the sum of $1,860 only, and charges further on information and belief that defendants have converted the balance of the fund to their own use.

The reasons given by the court for dismissing the suit without a decree upon the merits were that the bequest to plaintiff was void, and that if plaintiff had any remedy it must be in some other form of action.

Each defendant files a motion to dismiss the appeal. The reasons assigned by Silvestone are (1) that prior to the attempted appeal the plaintiff obtained an order of the court for the possession of the insurance policy held by Silvestone as collateral, which action it is claimed is inconsistent with his attitude as an appellant and a ratification of the transaction in which the insurance policy was delivered; (2) that the decree' [159]*159appealed from is not a final order, but that the final order was the one made by the court, permitting plain.tiff to withdraw the insurance policy from the files; (3) that no undertaking on appeal herein has been served upon defendant Fonts; (4) that the appellant has failed to file in this court any transcript or abstract within the time prescribed by statute for such filing; (5) that neither the transcript nor abstract as filed in the Circuit Court contains any statutory proof of service of the undertaking on appeal, upon the adverse party as required by the Code; (6) that no sufficient transcript on appeal has been filed herein, and (7) that no notice of appeal has been served upon any of the adverse parties, as prescribed by statute.

The defendant Fouts moves to dismiss for the reason that no service of the undertaking was made upon him. We will consider the motions in the order named, prefacing our observations with the remark that the privilege of an appeal to this court is one which the courts are loath to abridge or deny upon merely technical grounds, and with the added caution that no statement herein is to be construed as an intimation as to the merits of the charges made by plaintiff against the defendants. That question will properly arise when the case is heard upon the testimony with which at present we have nothing to do.

1. As to the first objection, we do not think the act of the plaintiff in asking that the insurance policy be delivered to him is so inconsistent with his attitude upon the trial as to defeat his appeal. The policy was a valid document in any event, and if plaintiff’s contention in the suit was correct and the trust fund had been wasted, he might well contend that it should be returned to him. The defendants are placed in no worse position by the fact that he made the request and [160]*160secured the order permitting him to withdraw the policy, as it appears that he did not withdraw it, but on the contrary it is on the files and with the papers sent here, where it will remain to abide the event of the controversy.

2. The second objection that the decree of May 30, 1917, was not final cannot be sustained. That decree finally and fully settled, so far as the Circuit Court was concerned, the rights of the plaintiff in that suit, and the fact that after the decree the plaintiff obtained permission to withdraw from the files a paper offered in testimony in the case, could not change the status of the case.

3. The third objection argued by both defendants is that there was no service of a copy of the undertaking upon the defendant Fouts, and that therefore the appeal must fail. The defendants appeared separately throughout and were entitled to separate service of the undertaking. They occupied the same offices and there is no question as to the sufficiency of the service upon Silvestone, and merely a technical failure to serve upon his codefendant would not stop the appeal. It is settled by the case of Dowell v. Bolt, 45 Or. 89 (75 Pac. 714), that the failure to serve an undertaking is not an omission that will defeat the appeal, and that such service is not a jurisdictional requirement, but an omission that may be corrected in this court. Counsel for respondent ingeniously attempts to draw a distinction between Section 554 as it stood when the case of Dowell v. Bolt was decided, and the section as it stands since the amendment found at page 619, Laws of 1913. There is no actual difference in the meaning. Section 554, supra, after enumerating the various acts required in order to perfect an appeal, including the service and filing of the undertaking, concludes “And [161]*161thereafter the appellate court shall have jurisdiction of the case, hut not otherwise.” The amended section, after similar recitals, concludes with the words, “And after compliance with the provisions hereof

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Bluebook (online)
174 P. 1176, 95 Or. 154, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boehmer-v-silvestone-or-1918.