Ringer v. Lockhart

227 S.E.2d 57, 237 Ga. 166, 1976 Ga. LEXIS 1183

• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Decided: June 30, 1976
• Docket: 30887
• Status: Published

Opinions

Ingram, Justice.

This is an equitable action to set aside a year’s support award alleged to have been obtained by fraud. A judgment on the pleadings was granted to the defendant and the plaintiff appeals from the final judgment.

Plaintiffs father’s will named plaintiffs stepmother as executrix under his will. Under that will, plaintiffs stepmother was to receive a life estate in certain property and the remainder interest was devised to plaintiff in fee simple. At the father’s funeral plaintiffs stepmother represented to the plaintiff that she would handle the estate fairly and that he needn’t worry about his father’s estate. Letters testamentary were issued to the stepmother on September 7, 1973. Relying on these representations, plaintiff returned to his home in Asheville, North Carolina.

Subsequently, the stepmother applied for a year’s support and was awarded the estate in fee simple. Soon thereafter she died leaving a will which named her own natural son as executor and sole beneficiary. Plaintiff brought this action against the son of his stepmother as executor and individually alleging that the year’s support award was procured by fraud and should be set aside for that reason. The defendant made a motion for a judgment on the pleadings and the trial court granted the motion.

A court of equity can set aside a year’s support judgment which was procured by fraud. See, e.g., Ellis v. Hogan, 147 Ga. 609 (95 SE 4) (1917). One of the things that can be considered by a court of equity in determining whether alleged conduct amounts to actionable fraud is whether or not a confidential relationship existed between the two people involved. See, e.g., Lewis v. Lewis, 228 Ga. 703 (187 SE2d 872) (1972). There are two possible confidential relationships stated in this complaint — the relationship of stepson-stepmother, and of beneficiary-executrix. See Hogg v. Hogg, 206 Ga. 691 (58 SE2d 403) (1950); Lewis v. Lewis, supra, (4); Watkins v. Donalson, 217 Ga. 524 (123 SE2d 728) (1962); and see also Allan v. Allan, 236 Ga. 199, 206, fn. 1 (223 SE2d 445) (1976).

Submitted March 15, 1976 Decided June 30, 1976. Tom Cain, for appellant. « James W. Garner, for appellees.

In a grant of a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the pleadings must show on their face that the plaintiff cannot prove a state of facts under which he will prevail. Tri-City Sanitation v. Action Sanitation Service, 227 Ga. 489 (181 SE2d 377) (1971). It was error to grant the judgment on the pleadings.

Plaintiff has raised another issue in the trial court and on appeal. There was no actual notice given to him of the 1973 year’s support proceeding. Plaintiff urges this court to apply the due process notice rule announced by this court in Allan v. Allan, supra. This court said in Allan v. Allan that the rule would only be applied to year’s support applications filed after the date of that decision. We reaffirm our decision to apply the rule announced in Allan from the effective date of that decision. Although Allan is not applicable to the present case, the judgment of the trial court will be reversed for the reasons stated in this opinion.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except Gunter, J., who dissents.