Mullen v. Doyle

Citations

• 147 Pa. 512
• 23 A. 807
• 1892 Pa. LEXIS 882

Syllabus

<p>Trusts and trustees — Purchase by trustee at Ms own sale.</p> <p>Counsel for a mortgagee who was foreclosing the mortgage on certain trust property, informed the trustee that he thought the mortgagee would be glad to have any one take the property who would pay sufficient in cash to leave only the principal of the mortgage debt unpaid. The trustee did not communicate this information to his cestui quo trust, but bought in the property and took title in the name of a third person for himself individually. Held, that the conduct of the trustee was such a failure of his full duty as trustee, as, irrespective of intent and of, any actual fraud, would prevent him from acquiring title for himself as against his cestui que trust.</p> <p>Statute of limitations — Notice to cestui que trust.</p> <p>Where a cestui que trust has no notice of a purchase by his trustee of the trust property until the filing of the trustee’s account in which the rents of the property were omitted, the statute of limitations will not begin to run against the cestui que trust until that date.</p> <p>JSquity — Pleading—Burden of proof.</p> <p>On a bill in equity by a cestui que trust to compel a conveyance of trust property, bought by his trustee in the name of a third person at a sheriff’s sale, a failure to prove the main averments of the bill that there was an express agreement and a purchase with the trust funds, is immaterial where the bill also avers the legal incapacity of the trustee to deal with the title to be foreclosed by the sheriff’s sale, because he was a trustee. In such a ease the averment put the defendant upon notice that the burden of proof would be upon him to sustain the purchase.</p>