Harris and Wife v. . Carstarphen

69 N.C. 416

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: June 5, 1873
• Status: Published

Opinion

Settle, J.

The defendant occupied the double confidential relation to the feme plaintiff of guardian and father-in-law, having married her mother.

On the eighth day after the ward’s arrival at the age of twenty-one, he procured from her a receipt in full settlement of his guardian accounts.

She now alleges that the defendant, taking advantage of her ignorance and confidence, has greatly imposed upon her, •and demands an account of his guardianship.

He sets up his receipt, or rather release in bar of all right of action. When a guardian has a settlement with his ward, shortly after the wards maturity, in the absence of her advisers and friends, the law, founded in public policy, presumes fraud, and throws the burden of rebutting that presumption upon the guardian.

The policy is “ to prevent fraud, and not merely to redress it.” Here the ward was invited to a settlement hy the .guardian, very soon after her maturity, and it was made in the presence of a single person to whom the ward was introduced for the first time when she entered the room to make the settlement.

We have no hesitation in putting this release out of the way, and giving the ward an opportunity to surcharge and falsify the accounts of the guardian; on the other hand, if the defendant has acted with the good faith and prudence demanded of a guardian, he will also have an opportunity of establishing it before the tribunals of the country. Williams v. Powell, 1 Ired. Eq. 460; Lee v. Pearce, 68 N. C. Rep. 76.

Let it be certified that there is no error.

Per Curiam. Judgment affirmed.