Reese v. Wallace

Citations

• 113 Ill. 589
• 1885 Ill. LEXIS 730

Syllabus

<p>1. Trust—enforcement in equity—Statute of Frauds. A person accepted an agency from five mortgagees holding mortgages upon the same land, to take the necessary steps to foreclose them, and collect the money due thereon. The agent employed an attorney, who obtained a decree of foreclosure, the agent bidding off the property, in the name of the second mortgagee, for the amount due on the two first mortgages, and agreeing with the attorney that if the latter could sell the property for enough to discharge all the mortgages, he should do so. The attorney procured a party to purchase the interest of the third mortgagee and advance a sum sufficient to pay all the parties, the attorney agreeing to have the certificate of purchase assigned to him. The agent settled with the holder of the certificate, and took an assignment thereof, and after the time for redemption had expired, refused to transfer the certificate to the party who had advanced the money due to all the parties, and sought, by mandamus, to compel the master in chancery to make him a deed. Thereupon the purchaser, by bill, enjoined the proceeding, and obtained a decree for the assignment of the certificate to himself: Held, that a court of equity had jurisdiction to enforce the trust, and that the Statute of Frauds was no defence to the bill.</p> <p>2. Estoppel—by omitting to repudiate the action of an attorney before the rights of third persons have accrued, in respect to the title to land. An attorney employed by an agent to collect certain mortgage debts, after a sale for the amount due the first two mortgagees, was authorized by the agent for all the mortgagees to make a sale of the property for a sum sufficient to pay all, and did make such sale to a party who bought the interest of one of the mortgagees Whose debt was not paid by the sale, in time for making redemption, if the arrangement made by the attorney had then been repudiated by the agent. The agent afterward obtained the certificate of purchase