Guilliott v. Kennedy

1924 OK 204, 224 P. 540, 101 Okla. 179, 1924 Okla. LEXIS 57
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedFebruary 19, 1924
Docket14429
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 1924 OK 204 (Guilliott v. Kennedy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guilliott v. Kennedy, 1924 OK 204, 224 P. 540, 101 Okla. 179, 1924 Okla. LEXIS 57 (Okla. 1924).

Opinion

McNEILL, J.

This action was commenced in the district court of Okmulgee county by Elizabeth Guilliott, nee Erancis, • against H. E, Kennedy, Ed Moore, and Edgar Noble to recover approximately $10,-000, alleged to have been wrongfully paid by Kennedy as guardian of plaintiff to Ed Moore and Edgar Noble, attorneys for said guardian. The action is based upon fraud alleged to have been practiced by Kennedy, Noble, and Moore. The court sustained a demurrer to plaintiff’s second amended petition and dismissed the action, and from said judgment the plaintiff has appealed.

Paragraphs 3, 4, 5, and 6 of original petition alleged a state of facts disclosing that Kennedy, as guardian of plaintiff, had worked in conjunction with Moore and Noble, whereby the said Moore and Noble obtained a large attorney fee, to wit, $9,-166. To this petition was attached various exhibits. Motion was filed to make this petition more definite and certain, and an amended petition was filed, which contained many of the same allegations. A motion was filed to make the amended petition more definite and certain. A second amended petition was filed, which omitted many of the allegations contained in the original petition, but the various exhibits attached to the original petition were considered as part of the second amended «petition. A demurrer was filed to the second amended petition, which was sustained by the court.

The general rule is, when the petition is attacked by a demurrer, the petition must be construed most favorably’ to the pleader and against the demurrant. This petition alleged that the plaintiff was the owner of an undivided one-half interest in certain lands in Okmulgee county; that H. E. Kennedy was appointed guardian on the 8th day of January, 1916, and acted as such until the plaintiff became of age on the 11th day of December, 1917, when he was discharged. That on said day, plaintiff was adjudged an incompetent and was under disability until the 11th day of April, 1919. It was further alleged plaintiff did not learn of the acts of fraud complained of until April, 1922,- a short time before filing her petition. The exhibits to the petition disclosed that some time in November,. 1917, Kennedy as guardian filed a petition; in the guardianship proceedings for permission to lease the land of plaintiff for oil and gas, and in said petition alleged' there was a certain suit pending in Okmulgee county, where the allotment of William Erancis was involved, being the land' in question, of which Elizabeth Francis, the-plaintiff herein, was the owner of an undivided one-half interest, and it was alleged' that it was admitted by all parties to said suit that she was the owner of said interest. That the district court of Okmulgee county had made an order authorizing the receiver of said land to sell an oil and gas; lease upon said land, but the order recited that Elizabeth Francis, the plaintiff herein, being a full-blood minor, the district court had no jurisdiction to order a sale of an oil and gas lease on her interest in the land. The petition of Kennedy alleged the land was valuable for oil and gas purposes, and asked that he, as guardian, be permitted to join with the receiver in making a sale of an oil and gas lease upon said land. The petition in the instant case alleges that the lease was sold on the whole tract for $55,000 and that the plaintiff’s share was $27,500. There was also attached to the petition as an exhibit a petition filed by Kennedy as guardian in the county court; the exact date this petition was filed in the county court does not appear, nor was the petition sworn to, but the petition filed in the county court contained the allegation that there was a suit pending in the district court wherein one Strawn was plaintiff and Brady was defendant and the allotment of William Erancis was ' involved, and the guardian thought it would be to the best interest of the minor to intervene in said action, and it would be necessary to employ counsel upon a contingent fee. There was also attached to the petition an order of the county court authorizing the guardian to employ counsel to intervene in said action, and the county court approved a contract between the guardian and Moore and Noble, authorizing an attorney fee of 33% per cent, of the amount recovered. Another exhibit attached to the petition is the petition filed by Moore and Noble in the county court wherein it was alleged they had recovered $27,500 by virtue of the litigation and were entitled to one-third of the same, or $9,166.65, and asked the court to authorize the guardian to pay them said fee. An order was made by the county court allowing said amount. The judgment in the case of Strawn v. Brady is also referred *181 to, wherein it appears that the only controversy in the case was the controversy as to the other one-half interest in the allotment, and not the interest of the plaintiff. There is a recital in that judgment that the guardian of the plaintiff had filed in the case of Strawn v. Brady an amended petition requesting that certain deeds be canceled and held for naught, and that cause of action was continued. The petition in this ease does not disclose what deeds were referred to. The petition in this ease then alleges that the allegations of the petition of the defendants filed in the county court for their fee were false and fraudulent, as they had recovered no money in the action, and that Kennedy, knowing all those facts and with the intent to deprive plaintiff of said amount, paid the same. There is an allegation, also, that the attorneys never recovered any amount by virtue of the litigation, but the amount of $27,500 had been paid long prior to the plaintiff recovering any judgment. There was also an allegation that the order of the county court allowing the attorney fee was void because the petition or application to allow the same was not signed by the guardian, but we think there is no merit in this last contention.

The second amended petition is very crudely drawn, and very indefinite and uncertain in many respects, but no motion to make the same more definite and certain was filed; if so, it would, no doubt, have been sustained. The defendants, however, only attacked the petition by a demurrer. Therefore, in considering whether the court erred in sustaining the demurrer, the allegations of the petition for this purpose must be considered as true, and the petition must be considered liberally in favor of the pleader and against the demurrant.

We think the petition, by giving it a liberal construction, can be construed as stating, in substance, about the following facts: That Kennedy was the guardian of the plaintiff herein and she was the owner of an undivided one-half interest in certain land. That no one had questioned her title and no suit had been brought by any one against her that put her title in issue. That for some reason unknown, the guardian procured an order to intervene in a case' where the plaintiff’s title was not questioned, and procured an order of the county court authorizing him to contract with attorneys for a contingent fee of 33% per cent, of what was recovered, and the plea of intervention that was filed by the attorneys in the case of Strawn v. Brady was for the purpose of canceling certain deeds, and the record does not disclose those deeds were canceled. The exhibit does disclose the guardian represented to the county court that the parties to the litigation all agreed that the plaintiff was entitled to her one-half interest in the estate, which was prior to the time of a sale of the oil and gas lease.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1924 OK 204, 224 P. 540, 101 Okla. 179, 1924 Okla. LEXIS 57, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guilliott-v-kennedy-okla-1924.