Overholt v. Matthews

Citations

• 48 App. D.C. 482
• 1919 U.S. App. LEXIS 2349

Syllabus

<p>Laches ; Fiduciary Relation; Good Faith; Burden op‘Proof; Right to Accounting.</p> <p>1. A suit for fraud, seasonably instituted, will not be dismissed because of a delay of ten years in its prosecution, where none of the parties thereto were in any way prejudiced by the delay, and the applicant for the dismissal was as much responsible as the complainant for the delay, and during the delay acquiesced in an order enlarging the time for a step in the proceedings. (Citing Meloy v. Keenan, 17 App. D. C. 235.) (The Chief Justice dissenting.)</p> <p>2. Where an inventor makes an agreement with an attorney to procure a purchaser for his invention or to organize a company for its exploitation, and the attorney takes charge of the situation, reducing the agreement to writing and characterizing himself therein as the inventor’s attorney, and their correspondence shows that fiduciary relations exist between them, the burden is upon the attorney to prove good faith toward the inventor and that he, kept him informed of all facts material to his interest, if it appears that the attorney has reaped a special benefit from the relationship. (The Chief Justice dissenting.)</p> <p>3. A court of equity has jurisdiction to compel an accounting where fiduciary relations exist between the parties or a discovery is sought.</p>