Fellows v. Loomis

Citations

• 170 Pa. 415
• 33 A. 266
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 1422

Syllabus

<p>[Marked to be reported.]</p> <p>Trusts and trustees — Attorney at law — Fraud—Ejectment — Equitable ejectment.</p> <p>The relations between attorney and client are confidential and fiduciary, and an attorney who procures from his client a transfer to himself of property which the client held in trust, cannot escape the obligations which rest on his client in relation to said property.</p> <p>Where a mortgagor owned real estate, subject to an easement, and entered into an agreement with the mortgagee to foreclose it and make sale of the property, for the purpose of effecting a transfer of title in the premises to a third party, in order to revest the mortgagee with a portion of the land, free from the easement, the attorney of the mortgagee who had charge of the whole transaction for both parties, with full knowledge of its details and its purpose, and who took an assignment of the mortgage to himself the day before the sale, and bought in the property at the sale for a nominal sum, is bound to the mortgagor by the same trust relation which existed between the mortgagor and the mortgagee, and as the mortgagee under his agreement would have been compelled to reeonvey the land to the mortgagor when repaid the amount of the mortgage and all costs and expenses to which he had been subjected, the attorney is bound to do the same.</p> <p>An action of ejectment to enforce such a trust is an equitable action, and whether the attorney took as an innocent purchaser without notice was, under the facts as stated, a question of law for the court, and not a question ■of fact to be submitted to the jury. The court should have directed the jury to find a verdict conditioned for the payment of the debt and interest ■of the judgment assigned to the attorney, together with all lawful expenses incurred by the attorney in and about the management and care of the trust estate.</p> <p>A verdict finding that the defendant is a purchaser without notice, when the law imputes notice on the