Heckscher v. Edenborn

131 A.D. 253, 115 N.Y.S. 673, 1909 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 790
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedMarch 12, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 131 A.D. 253 (Heckscher v. Edenborn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Heckscher v. Edenborn, 131 A.D. 253, 115 N.Y.S. 673, 1909 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 790 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1909).

Opinions

Woodward, J.:

This is an action at law, tried by the court, a jury having been waived, to recover, as moneys had and received, the amounts paid by the plaintiff and his assignors for certain stock in the Sheffield Coal and Iron Company in pursuance of their subscriptions to.a syndicate agreement which they claim to have rescinded. The learned trial court has made ninety-six findings of fact and twenty conclusions of law, sustaining the plaintiff’s contention, and awarding judgment for the full amount claimed. The defendant excepts [255]*255to certain of the findings of fact and to all of the conclusions of law, and urges upon this apj>eal that the judgment be reversed.

We are of the opinion that, notwithstanding the heroic affirmations of plaintiff’s counsel, and his many suggestions of what an honest man should do and say under given circumstances, this judgment is not right, and that it should not be affirmed; we do not believe the evidence in this case warrants the conclusion that there was constructive fraud on the part of the defendant, much less that there is evidence to support the conclusion that he was guilty of any actual fraud. The complaint sets out various causes of action, one upon a claim of the plaintiff and the others on assigned claims, substantially the same facts appearing in each case, so far as it is necessary to the consideration of the questions involved on. this appeal. The theory of the complaint is that the defendant in this action, as the agent of the plaintiff and his assignors, purchased certain shares of stock, constituting a majority, of the United States Iron Company, which stock belonged to the defendant, without disclosing such ownership to the plaintiff and his assignors, and that they, upon the discovery of this fact, returned to him the stock issued to them for their subscriptions to the syndicate fund, and demanded the return of their money, thus rescinding the contract under which they had paid their money, and being entitled to recover the same in an action at law. There is no doubt of the rule- of law invoked, but there is, in our opinion, no ground for its application to the facts in this case, and we are persuaded that the learned trial court has fallen into error in holding that the burden of proof was upon the defendant to show that he had not been guilty of constructive fraud. This seems to us clear from the complaint, which, in so far as it is not denied, must be accepted, for the purposes of - the action, as true. This is certainly the- rule as it applies to the plaintiff; he cannot be heard to dispute the facts alleged in his complaint, and if we read that document aright, in connection with the contract between the parties, which is made a part of the complaint, we are unable to understand how the defendant could be called upon to answer in damages in this action, or in any other, without showing that he had been guilty of some actual fraud, which must always be jiroyed, and can never be presumed. The right to rescind a contract undoubtedly exists where an agent has [256]*256purchased property of himself for his principal without disclosing the facts, and if the .syndicate had seen fit to rescind that part of the transaction which dealt with the property of the defendant Eden-born, or had brought an action to recover any profit he might have made in the transaction, or if the plaintiff, on the refusal of the syndicate to act, had come into a court of equity for relief from so much of the transaction as is above suggested, there might be great force in the proposition. But the plaintiff has not limited himself to the acts in relation to the property of the defendant Edenborn ; he has attempted to rescind the original syndicate contract, and to impose upon the defendant all the losses of the syndicate,- without attempting to show that any of these losses resulted from the purchase of the property of the defendant. Indeed, the plaintiff admitted on cross-examination that he made no claim that Edenborn had turned in any property to the Sheffield Goal and Iron Company (the representative of the original syndicate) at a valuation that was not true or at a valuation that was greater than he paid for it. So that we have a case where business men entered into an agreement to organize a syndicate involving $3,500,000, expressly authorizing the purchase of a particular property at $1,000,000, and then permitting a few of the members of this syndicate to repudiate the whole transaction because subsequently ■ the three syndicate managers carried out the purpose of the syndicate and purchased the stock of the United States Iron Company, not at $1,000,000, but at the rate of $70 per share, or $30 per share less than they were authorized to pay, and this without showing that the syndicate losses were due in any measure to the fact of such purchase. That is, assuming that Edenborn alone acted (that the two other syndicate managers were mere dummies as alleged in the complaint), the constructive fraud in purchasing property in which he was interested is permitted to relate back and to vitiate the original contract, which was made as between man and man, and in which Edenborn was not the agent or fiduciary of any' living being, and without showing that it had anything to do with the losses which appear to have been made by the Sheffield Coal and Iron Company, and which furnishes the reason for the attempted repudiation of- the contract. But there is not a scintilla of evidence (the allegation being denied) that the other two syndicate managers were Edenborn’s dummies; for all [257]*257that appears in the evidence they were men entirely capable and worthy of -trust, and the law always presumes that men have done their duty until something is shown to overcome that presumption.

It cannot be doubted that an agent has a right to deal with his own property for his principal if the latter is made aware of the facts and does not object, and, as the principal has a right to ratify the acts of his agent after knowing the facts, he has a clear right to waive that knowledge of the facts in advance, and he has a right to stipulate that the agent, may deal with his own property for the principal. (Matter of New York, L. & W. R. R. Co., 98 N. Y. 447, 453, and authorities there cited; Sentenis v. Ladew, 140 id. 463, 466; Mayor, etc., of New York v. M. R. Co., 143 id. 1, 26, and authorities ..there cited.) In the Sentenis Case (supra) it was said: “ A party may waive a rule of law or a statute, or even a constitutional provision enacted for his benefit or protection, where it is exclusively a matter of private right, and no' considerations of public policy or morals are involved, and having once done so he cannot subsequently invoke its protection.” (See People v. Bloom, 193 N. Y. 1.) In the light of these rules let us examine this contract, that we may discover if there be any ground for this recovery.

The contract in its 1st paragraph recites: “ Agreement, dated New York, April 15th, 1902, by and between Wim. Edenborn, August Mann & J. C.

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Related

Edenborn v. Sim
206 F. 275 (Second Circuit, 1913)
Heckscher v. Edenborn
137 A.D. 899 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1910)
Hecksher v. Edenborn
116 N.Y.S. 1137 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1909)

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Bluebook (online)
131 A.D. 253, 115 N.Y.S. 673, 1909 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 790, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/heckscher-v-edenborn-nyappdiv-1909.