Percy v. Cockrill

53 F. 872, 4 C.C.A. 73, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 1394
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 23, 1893
DocketNo. 99
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 53 F. 872 (Percy v. Cockrill) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Percy v. Cockrill, 53 F. 872, 4 C.C.A. 73, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 1394 (8th Cir. 1893).

Opinion

SANBORN, Circuit Judge,

(after stating the facts.) The first question suggested by this record is, — conceding for the present that tliia will created a trust in favor of the complainant which charged the property devised to her three brothers with the burden of making suitable provision for her; that this canse of action did not accrue until she discovered the late defendant Cockrill in possession of her father’s home in 1858, claiming to own it under the conveyances from her brothers to him; and that the charges of his knowledge of the violation of this trust, and of his collusion with those brothers to violate it, through these conveyances, contained in the bill, are sufficient to charge the real estate in his hands with the trust in complainant’s favor, without stopping now to consider or decide the questions these propositions present, — can the complainant at this late day maintain this suit?

The will which created the charge or trust on which this bill is founded was probated in 1847. The sale under it to the late defendant Cockrill, which complainant now avers charged him as a constructive trustee for her benefit, was made in 1856. The complainant and her husband had full notice of it, and knew that under it Cockrill was in possession of her father’s home, claiming to own it, in 1858. Twenty-three years after she received this notice, and on the 15th day of January, 1891, she filed this bill, and then first complained, so far •as the record shows, that the mortgages and deeds made by her [875]*875brothers, as devisees and executors of their father’s will in 1849,1854, and 1856, were violations of the trust imposed on them by the will, and constructive frauds upon her rights. That these brothers made suitable provision for her sisters until they died; that they provided her with a liberal support and education during her minority, aud kindly and tenderly raised her, in a manner befitting her station in life, — her hill alleges. That they were ignorant that, in the execution of the mortgages and deeds now complained of, they were violating any provision of the will, and believed themselves to he the legal and beneficial owners of all the property of the estate under this will, and that they had the right to mortgage, sell, and convey it as their own, the bill admits. All these brothers died insolvent years ago. The sisters Susan and Margaret have been dead for 20 years. The purchaser, Cockrill, died since (Ms suit was commenced. Xone of the six children named in the will are now living but the complainant; and probably no one but the complainant now knows, if indeed she does, how liberal and expensive were the provisions made by the brothers for the support and education of the complainant and her sisters. Some of the land which these brothers conveyed to the late defendant Cockrill in 1856 has become a part of a city, and doubtless all of it is greatly enhanced in value. So1 general has been the traffic in and distribution of it by conveyances under Cockrill and David I. Armstrong ¡hat more than 60 persons are made defendants to this hill, as claimants under them to a title in, or a lien upon, some part of this property. Should a court of equity, after this great lapse of time, after the death of so many important witnesses, and in view of the changed condition and value of this land, he moved to enforce a trust or charge against the immediate or remote purchasers under these brothers, in favor of a complainant who has delayed so long?

The rule that length of time is no bar in equity -to a suit for relief from an actual fraud or a constructive trust, clearly proved, which has been fraudulently and successfully concealed from the party aggrieved, has no application to this case subsequent to 1858. One of the qualifications of this rule is that the facts constituting the fraud or trust must have been fraudulently and successfully concealed from the injured party. Badger v. Badger, 2 Wall. 87, 92. And notice of facts and circumstances which, would put a man of ordinary intelligence and prudence on inquiry is, in the eye of the law, equivalent to knowledge of all the facts a reasonably diligent inquiry would disclose. “Whatever is notice enough to excite attention, and put the party on his guard, and call for inquiry, is notice of everything to which such inquiry might have led. Where a person has sufficient; information to lead him to a fact, he shall be deemed conversant with it.” Kennedy v. Green, 3 Mylne & K. 699, 722; Wood v. Carpenter, 101 U. S. 135, 141; Rugan v. Sabin, (decided by this court December 6, 1892,) 53 Fed. Rep. 415; Parker v. Kuhn, 21 Neb. 413, 421-426, 32 N. W. Rep. 74; Wright v. Davis, 28 Neb. 479, 483, 44 N. W. Rep. 490. The knowledge complainant and her husband acquired during their visit, to Arkansas, in 1858, that Cockrill was in possession of the property, claiming to own it, must be deemed, in the eye of [876]*876the law, to be notice of all the facts they have since learned, relative to this case. •

In cases of concurrent jurisdiction the federal courts, sitting in equity, consider themselves bound by the statutes of limitations which govern courts of law in like cases, and this rather in obedience to the statutes than by analogy. In many other cases they act upon the analogy of the statutory limitations at law. Generally courts of equity act, or refuse to act, in analogy to the statute, and they will not be moved to set aside a fraudulent transaction, or to enforce •a constructive trust, at the suit of one who has been quiescent during a period longer than that fixed by the statute of limitations, after the complainant had knowledge of the fraud or trust, or after he was put upon inquiry, with the means of knowledge accessible to him. Wagner v. Baird, 7 How. 234, 257; Godden v. Kimmell, 99 U. S. 201, 210; Burke v. Smith, 16 Wall. 390, 400; Kirby v. Railroad Co., 120 U. S. 130, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 430; Boone Co. v. Burlington & M. R. R. Co., 139 U. S. 684, 692, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 687.

What, then, was the statute of limitations of the state of Arkansas, applicable to a suit of this character, or to an action at law for a like cause, between 1847 and 1891? By act of January 4, 1851, the legislature of Arkansas provided as follows:

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Bluebook (online)
53 F. 872, 4 C.C.A. 73, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 1394, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/percy-v-cockrill-ca8-1893.