Rixey's Adm'r v. Moorehead

Citations

• 79 Va. 575
• 1884 Va. LEXIS 116

Syllabus

<p>Principal and Agent—Case at Bar.—M., in 1849, then in prime of life, and of more than ordinary business capacity, employed her nephew, R., as her agent, and turned over to him certain bonds and slaves, the interest and hires whereof he was to collect from time to time and pay over. She was familiar with his books, wherein he kept account of these transactions. They made repeated settlements, with those books as their guide, and she gave him receipts, recognizing the correctness of their accounts as kept by him. As late as 1873 those accounts and her receipts showed balance due her of only $73.12, whilst errors, in calculation and otherwise, appear to turn the balance, in his favor. He received nothing after that. He died in 1875. Though in his life she had never complained of him, yet, in 1876, she filed her bill praying for a settlement of his accounts as her agent, charging that on a fair settlement his estate owed her a very large sum of money, and alleging that she had had the utmost confidence in his integrity, and had signed many papers at his request, supposing they were only receipts for money paid her by him, then or previously, and charging that any papers signed by her, and purporting to be a full or partial settlement between them, which might be found among his papers, were procured by fraud. R.’s administrator answered, denying all fraud and all indebtedness to her, and set up the said accounts and receipts, showing balance in favor of decedent. Reference being decreed, the master reported that R.’s accounts were in the main correct up to 1859. He then (though her bill made no complaint of it) disallowed a charge by R. against M. as of March, 1864, for $2,200, invested in eight per cent. Confederate bonds, as an investment which “ no prudent man would at that time have made of his own money.” He also allowed her credit as of 1859 for $1,293.25, as amount retained by him of proceeds of sale of slaves wherein she bad a life interest, but without proof