Landis v. Wintermute

Citations

• 40 Wash. 673
• 82 P. 1000
• 1905 Wash. LEXIS 1047

Syllabus

<p>Attorney and Client — Transactions Between ■ — ■ Good Faith. Where a sale of mining stock from an attorney to an inexperienced woman grew out of transactions in which he represented her as an attorney and in a confidential relation, whereby he gained her confidence, he is bound to use the utmost good faith, the burden of proving which will be upon him; and the sale should be rescinded if material matters were misrepresented.</p> <p>Sales — Rescission — Fraud — Transactions Between Attorney and Client. A sale of mining stock by an attorney to his client, an old lady inexperienced in business matters, for whom he had been transacting business, should be cancelled for fraud, where the client testified that he represented it as a sale by the company, in which he had no interest, and that a monthly dividend equal to ten per cent per annum would be paid thereon, while the fact was that he sold her his own stock at one dollar per share, when its highest selling price was fifty cents per share, and advanced the monthly dividend himself, the company never having paid any dividends, and where her testimony is strongly corroborated by a letter written by the attorney describing the transaction as testified to by her.</p> <p>Same — Laches—Waiver oe Rescission. In such a case the client is not estopped by neglecting to rescind the sale upon being informed that the stock sold for fifty cents a share, when she thereupon asked the attorney to show her his stocK, and her suspicions were allayed by -seeing printed thereon the words “shares $1 each,” and by other matters.</p> <p>Same — -Estoppel — Voting Stock After Attempted Rescission. A person to whom mining stock has been fraudulently sold, and who has sought a rescission of the sale, tendering back the stock, is not estopped to insist upon a rescission by the fact that she attended a stockholders meeting and voted the stock after the commencement of the action.</p>