PHILIPPI v. PHILIPPE & Others

Citations

• 115 U.S. 151

Syllabus

<p>Although it is true that when the relation of trustee and cestui qm trust exists and is admitted by the trustee, lapse of time is no bar to relief in equity against the trustee in favor of the cestui que trust, yet, when the trustee repudiates the trust in unequivocal words, and claims to hold the trust property as his own, and. such repudiation and claim are brought to the notice of the beneficiary in such manner that he is called upon to assert his equitable rights, the statute of limitation, begins to run from the time when they thus come to his knowledge.</p> <p>In Alabama, even in the absence of a statute of limitation, if twenty years are allowed to elapse from the time when proceedings could have been instituted for the settlement of a trust, without the commencement of such proceedings, and there has been no recognition, within that period, of the trust as continuing and undischarged, a presumption of settlement would arise, operating as a continuing bar.</p> <p>■ When the lapse of twenty years raises in Alabama the presumption of payment and satisfaction of an equitable claim, the provision of § 2, Ordinance 5, of the Constitutional Convention, adopted September 27,1865, that “ in computing the time necessary to create the bar of the statutes of limitation and non-claim, the time elapsing between the 11th of January, 1861, and the passage of this ordinance shall not be estimated ” does not aflect the presumption unless within that period there has been some recognition of the liability which it is sought to enforce.</p>