Hayne v. Hermann

Citations

• 97 Cal. 259
• 32 P. 171
• 1893 Cal. LEXIS 526

Syllabus

<p>Constructive Trust — Husband and Wife — Conveyance upon Parol Trust. —Where a husband, caused a tract of land, of which he was the owner, to he conveyed to his wife, and also certain moneys and other personal property to he paid to her, with the verbal understanding that the wife was to hold it in trust for the husband while he lived, and after his death to divide it in equal parts between herself and daughter, a constructive trust was thereby created which will be enforced in favor of the daughter.</p> <p>Id. — Trust by Operation of Law — Statute of Frauds. — Constructive trusts are such as arise by operation of law, and are excepted from the requirement that a trust can only be created by an instrument in writing.</p> <p>Id. —Fraud in Obtaining Title — Presumption. —Whenever one person acquires from another the title to real estate by a fraud, actual or constructive, practiced upon that other, a constructive trust is created, which a court of equity will fasten upon the title in his. hands; and fraud is presumed when an unfair advantage is gained through any undue influence exercised over the party from whom, the advantage is derived.</p> <p>Id.—Husband and Wife—Confidential Relations—Presumption of Undue Influence. — A husband and wife occupy confidential relations with each other; and the influence which the law presumes to have been exercised by one spouse over the other is not an influence caused by any act of persuasion or importunity, but is that influence which is superinduced by the relation between them, and generated in the mind of the one by the confiding trust which he has in the devotion and fidelity of the other. Such influence the law presumes to have been undue, whenever this confidence is subsequently violated or abused.</p> <p>Id. — Evidence — Declarations of Defendant — Corroboration of Proof of Trust. —In an action to enforce a constructive trust, where the testimony on behalf of the plaintiff tended to show the existence of a parol trust, t