A judicial sale of real estate will not be set aside for
inadequacy of price unless the inadequacy be so great as to shock
the conscience or unless there be additional circumstances against
its fairness.
Great inadequacy of price at a judicial sale of real estate
requires only slight circumstances of unfairness in the conduct of
the party benefited by the sale to raise a presumption of
fraud.
If the inadequacy of price paid for the purchase of real estate
at a sale on an
Page 117 U. S. 181
execution be so gross as to shock the conscience, or if in
addition to gross inadequacy the purchaser has been guilty of
unfairness or has taken any undue advantage, or if the owner of the
property or the party interested in it has been for any other
reason misled or surprised, then the sale will be regarded as
fraudulent and void, and the party injured will be permitted to
redeem the property sold.
Looking at the whole facts in this case, the Court finds traces
of design on the part of plaintiff in error to mislead defendant in
error, to lull her into security and thus prevent her from
redeeming her property sold on execution within the period allowed
by the statute of the state, and the Court sustains the action of
the court below in making a decree allowing redemption of the same
after the expiration of that period.
After hearing of the proofs, a bill in equity may be amended so
as to put in issue matters in dispute and in proof but not
sufficiently put in issue by the original bill.
This was a bill to redeem from a sale of real estate in
Massachusetts under an execution issued from one of the state
courts. The suit was commenced after the expiration of the period
allowed by the statutes of that state for redeeming from such a
sale. The facts which make the case are stated in the opinion of
the Court.
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
This was a bill in equity filed on the 10th of July, 1880, by
Christine J. Burgess, the appellee, against Peter Graffam, Samuel
M. Fairfield, Edward B. Newhall, and others, to compel Graffam to
deliver up to her certain lands and premises unlawfully held by him
(as alleged), and for other and further relief.
The bill alleged that the complainant had for many years been
the owner in fee simple of the premises in question, a house and
lot in the Town of Melrose, Middlesex County, Massachusetts,
unencumbered and worth at least $10,000; that complainant generally
occupied the property as a summer residence, and when not occupying
it herself, rented it out to tenants with the furniture therein,
and that her general residence was with her husband, in Providence,
Rhode Island. It
Page 117 U. S. 182
was further alleged that in the fall of 1877, the complainant
had some mason work done by Peter Graffam, one of the defendants,
the bill for which was $23; that the complainant objected to paying
the bill on the ground that the work was badly done; that in
January, 1879, Graffam employed Samuel M. Fairfield, an attorney,
one of the defendants, to sue the complainant for this bill by
attachment in the Middlesex District Court, and that on the 10th of
March, 1879, he recovered judgment against her for $28.95 damages
and $16.15 costs; that execution was issued on this judgment, and
the whole property was sold by the sheriff at his office in Malden,
on the 17th of May, 1879, and that Graffam became the purchaser for
$73.10, and the sheriff gave him a deed; that in January, 1879,
Edward B. Newhall, a real estate agent, pretending to have a claim
of $30 against the complainant for services, employed Fairfield to
sue the same, and an attachment was issued, and judgment recovered
on the same 10th of March, 1879, and execution issued and levied on
the interest of complainant remaining in the premises after the
sale to Graffam, and that a sale was made of said interest to
Newhall on the 13th of August, 1879, for $81.21, and a deed was
given to him by the sheriff accordingly. The complainant alleges
that neither of these claims was valid against her, and that the
parties knew it; that when the levies and sales were made, the
complainant had $3,000 worth of furniture and personal property in
the house entirely unencumbered, and had a well known agent in the
neighborhood, and a tenant in the house until June 1, 1879, after
which she occupied it herself until the fall; that she also had an
attorney in Massachusetts known to the defendants, but that no
notice of such sale was ever communicated to her, her attorney,
agent, or tenant; that in 1880, from and after the first of May,
the complainant expended $1,200 in repairs to the house and
grounds; that Graffam and the other defendants meanwhile conspired
together to keep her in ignorance of the sale until the year
allowed by the statutes of Massachusetts for redeeming the property
had expired; that in pursuance of this scheme, Graffam bought out
Newhall, who, by his subsequent
Page 117 U. S. 183
purchase, had a right to redeem the property from the sale to
Graffam; that the year for redemption having expired on the 17th of
May, 1880, on the 22d of June thereafter, Graffam, Fairfield, and
others, during the temporary absence of the complainant from the
house, seized their opportunity, entered upon the premises, broke
into the house, and took possession of it in behalf of Graffam,
removed all the furniture and other personal property, including
the wearing apparel of complainant, of her husband and servant,
took possession of her private correspondence and papers, and the
sum of $170 in money, and still held possession of all of said
property at the time of filing the bill; that complainant, on being
informed of this proceeding, immediately caused an investigation to
be made, and for the first time learned of the sales made under the
executions; that she thereupon entered into negotiation with
Graffam to try to get a settlement, and offered to pay him all that
the property had been sold for, and such reasonable costs and
charges as he had sustained; but that he refused any arrangement
unless she would pay him $1,100, which he claimed was due him by
reason of the large sums he had expended to employ counsel and men
to watch and advise him of the complainant's absence, so that he
could take possession. The bill states that Graffam still had
keepers in possession of the house, who were injuring it by their
wanton conduct, and that the complainant was informed that Graffam
intended to sell the property, and was soliciting offers for it. An
answer under oath was waived. On the 16th of June, 1880, an
amendment to the bill was filed alleging that Graffam, to carry out
his fraud, had conveyed the property to one Herbert F. Doble for
the nominal consideration of $5,000, and stated several
circumstances to show that it was not a
bona fide
transaction. The deed was dated before the filing of the bill, but
it was charged that it was not executed till afterwards, and that
the date was a false one. Doble was made a party.
The defendants severally answered, but as the answers were not
required to be under oath, it is unnecessary to recite them. The
parties went into proofs, and the cause was heard before the court
below, which, in January, 1882, announced its opinion
Page 117 U. S. 184
that the case was one for redemption, but not for entire
annulment of proceedings and unconditional surrender of the
property on account of fraud; therefore, dismissing the bill
against all the defendants except Graffam and Doble, the court gave
the complainant leave to amend her bill on payment to the
defendants of costs and reasonable counsel fees. The complainant
amended her bill accordingly by adding an offer to pay into court
the amount of the two judgments recovered against her by Graffam
and Newhall, with interest, and praying for permission to redeem
the property, and that Graffam and Doble might be required to
account for rents and profits, and to reconvey to her. This
amendment was first objected to and then demurred to, but
objections and demurrer being overruled, the defendants filed an
answer setting up that the application to redeem came too late, and
that no sufficient offer was made to entitle complainant to redeem;
that defendants were entitled to $2,000 for expenses, etc. The
complainant paid into court the defendants' costs, $215.45, a
counsel fee of $150 allowed by the court, and $181.24, the amount
of the two judgments and sates under the same, with interest.
Thereupon the court made a decree, dated April 21, 1882, whereby,
after reciting the payment of the money into court by the
complainant and that the defendants, Graffam and Doble, had
collected certain rents and made certain payments, and had made
charges for services, and for the custody and care of the premises,
and that these accounts and items had been submitted directly to
the court without reference to a master, and the court having found
and declared that the defendants, Graffam and Doble, were
sufficiently paid by the rents received by them for all said
charges and expenses, it was then decreed as follows, namely:
"That the complainant is entitled to redeem the premises without
further payments for such redemption; that the said defendants,
Graffam and Doble are entitled to receive the sums already paid
into court for their benefit and to retain the rents received by
them, and that the said defendants, Graffam and Doble, make
conveyance of the real estate described in the bill to the
complainant, free from all encumbrances made or suffered by or
through them."
It
Page 117 U. S. 185
was also referred to a master to determine the form of
conveyance to be made pursuant to the decree, to receive said
conveyance duly executed, and to deliver the same to the
complainant, and report proceedings. The master reported the form
of a deed, which was approved, and the defendants were ordered to
execute it. From this decree the defendants, Graffam and Doble,
have appealed.
We do not propose to review the evidence in the case in detail.
We have carefully examined it, and find the principal allegations
of the bill to be true, and are convinced that while the
complainant was apprised of the suits of Graffam and Newhall
instituted against her by attachment, in her absence, in January,
1879, and employed counsel to defend them, yet that she was totally
ignorant of the issue of executions on the judgments in those
cases, and of the sale of her property under the same, and of the
legal rights which Graffam acquired, or might acquire, by the lapse
of a year's time after the sale. We are satisfied that she was
unconscious of the position in which her property stood, and that
Graffam knew that she was unconscious of it, and endeavored to keep
her so, and took an inequitable advantage of her ignorance to get
possession of her property and to get her in his power. Even if it
be true, as the court below supposed, that the evidence was
insufficient to make out a case of conspiracy and fraud that would
sustain a decree for unconditional delivery of the property as
originally prayed, we think it is abundantly sufficient to justify
the decree which the court below did make allowing the complainant
to redeem upon payment of debt, interest, costs, and counsel fees.
In our judgment of the case, the defendants ought to be well
satisfied with this disposition of the case.
It is a principle of law as well as of natural justice that
greater consideration and care are due to persons known to be
unable to take care of themselves than to those who are fully able
to do so. The driver of a team, seeing a child or a woman or a
person of known feeble intellect in the street, is bound to
exercise greater care and diligence to avoid doing them harm than
would be obligatory if it was a grown and capable man. In dealing
with a man whose rights, without his knowledge,
Page 117 U. S. 186
but which by due diligence he might know, are passing away by
lapse of time into another's hands, the latter may perhaps justify
himself in the eye of the law (though not in conscience) in
preserving a wary and crafty silence so as to put his victim off
his guard and bring him into his own power, while he would be
perfectly inexcusable in taking such advantage of a woman,
unskilled in business and unused to the stratagems which are
sometimes resorted to by unscrupulous persons.
In view of this just standard of human action, which a court of
equity always recognizes, the conduct of the defendant Graffam
appears in a very unenviable light. What is the scheme which has
been carried out, and is now sought to be sustained in this Court?
Nothing more nor less than to get and keep possession of the
complainant's property, worth $10,000, to satisfy a paltry claim of
less than $200, and this has been accomplished by keeping from her
all knowledge of the device, lulling her into security until the
year for redemption passed by, having her operations watched and
her footsteps dogged, and clandestinely seizing possession in her
temporary absence
It is insisted that the proceedings were all conducted according
to the forms of law. Very likely. Some of the most atrocious frauds
are committed in that way. Indeed, the greater the fraud intended,
the more particular the parties to it often are to proceed
according to the strictest forms of law.
Considering the amount of the stake to be won and the
overwhelming injury to be inflicted upon an unsuspecting woman, it
is difficult to regard with equanimity the proceedings of the
defendant as the year of redemption drew to its close and after it
had terminated. The fact is virtually admitted that he kept up a
regular corps of spies to watch her movements while she was laying
out hundreds of dollars in repairs on the property in order to find
a favorable moment, when she was absent, to take possession of her
home, and that he seized such a moment and did take possession, and
removed all her furniture and chattels, even to her clothing and
private papers, and virtually turned her into the streets. These
admitted facts are enough of themselves to show the animus and
Page 117 U. S. 187
intent of the defendant. No man with an honest purpose could
have done this, whatever aggravation he may have had relating to
the payment of his claim. There were other methods to which he
could and would have resorted. A piano or a mirror would probably
have satisfied his whole claim.
The pretense that before striking the blow he gave the
complainant warning by calling upon her and telling her that he had
bought the premises, and that she must settle the case does not
palliate the defendant's conduct or change its bearing on the case.
It was evidently done not for the purpose of getting his money or
getting an arrangement, but to give a better coloring to his
proceedings. We only have his story as to what he said. The
instructions of his lawyer were "to ask her for a settlement of the
claims which he held, and to tell her that, unless they were paid
immediately, he would have to take it out of her property." This is
probably what he said, and it was well calculated to mislead the
complainant as to her real position and the defendant's intentions
and power. She would not understand from what he said that her
property was in any immediate peril. Why did he not tell her that
the property was sold at sheriff's sale, and that the time for
redeeming it was about expiring, and that if it expired, he could
retain the whole property forever? He evidently did not wish it
redeemed, for then she would only have had to pay the debts or the
amounts bid. He wanted to get her into his power. He was willing to
let her go on and spend some few more hundreds of dollars in
repairs. These were certainly all, or mostly, made after the 17th
of May. Standing by and seeing her doing this, and letting her go
on without informing her of her position and of his rights,
considering the character of the respective parties, was itself a
fraud.
Mr. Brown, the complainant's counsel, having called upon
Fairfield, as Graffam's attorney, after the seizure of the
premises, to ascertain what arrangement could be made, testifies
that the latter demanded for his client $750, and a full discharge
of all liability on account of the removal of the personal
property, and that one reason assigned by him for demanding such a
large amount was that Graffam had spent a great deal
Page 117 U. S. 188
of his time in watching the property, and should be paid
liberally. The witness continued:
"I asked him what was the occasion of watching the property. He
said they watched the property to see what Mrs. Burgess was doing
with it until the year expired, and that since that, he had
employed men to watch the property in order to ascertain when Mrs.
Burgess was away, so that they could get in and take possession. He
said that arrangement continued until the 22d of June, when he
received a dispatch at his office in Boston stating that Mrs.
Burgess was away; that then he took some person with him from
Boston as a keeper, went to Melrose on the next train, and assisted
in opening one of the back windows of the house, and went in and
took out the property. I said to him:"
"What was the need of your watching the property? Did you not
understand that before the year had expired from the date of the
sale on the execution of Peter Graffam against Mrs. Burgess, Edward
B. Newhall, the purchaser of the right of redemption under the
subsequent sale on his execution, was bound to come in and redeem
from the sale to Peter Graffam, or lose his debt?"
"To which he replied that he understood that very well; that he
advised his client, Peter Graffam, to purchase the Newhall title by
sheriff's sale, and wait until the expiration of the year from the
sale to Newhall before the matter was stirred up, and he added -- I
give his language almost verbatim: 'Mr. Brown, we have had trouble
enough with this woman, and we never intended that she should
redeem this property if we could help it.' . . . He repeated that
when they went into this matter, they intended to clean her
out."
Fairfield denies these expressions, it is true, but they are so
consonant with what actually took place that we may suppose that he
did not recollect precisely what he did say. Brown says that he
caused the conversation to be taken down in shorthand as soon as he
returned to his own office. It is true that Fairfield's
declarations ought not to be used against Graffam except when made
by him in the course of his business as Graffam's attorney. It is
in this point of view that they have been noticed.
The testimony of Conant, the complainant's agent, is
significant
Page 117 U. S. 189
in this connection. He was in Melrose when the defendant was
removing the personal property. He went to the house to see what
was the matter. He knew the teamster and the man who was loading
the wagon. He says:
"I asked the cause of all this trouble. I conversed mostly with
a black-haired man, who appeared to be the keeper in charge. He
told me it was about a mason's bill. I asked him the amount, and
also asked him for time to telegraph to Mrs. Burgess, and I would
see that the bill was paid within ten minutes. He said: 'No, she
had had time enough.' This was between eight and nine o'clock at
night. I stayed there about an hour."
In any light in which Graffam's conduct may be viewed, it is
clear that he did not pursue an open, straightforward course. As we
view the proofs, he evidently conceived the design of getting
complainant's property for a mere nominal consideration, or else of
getting her into his power so as to compel her to comply with any
exorbitant demands he might choose to make. He knew she was
ignorant of the sale and of the position in which the sale placed
her. He stood by and saw her expending large sums of money on the
property in total unconsciousness of his proceedings, and of the
means of injuring her which he held in his hands. Instead of
undeceiving her, he gave her a mere perfunctory notice that if she
did not settle the claims which he held, he would have to take it
out of her property, and pursued just such a course as was
calculated to lull instead of exciting any suspicions of the real
danger in which she stood, all the time purposing to take
possession of the property for his own use as soon as her back was
turned and keeping spies to watch her proceedings and to find a
favorable opportunity of clandestinely slipping into the premises
in her absence. If this is not fraud, we should have great
difficulty in defining what fraud is.
That the defendant sought to put all possible embarrassments in
the way of the redemption of the property is evinced by the device
resorted to of getting an assignment of Newhall's claim. Newhall
had purchased all the interest of the complainant remaining in the
property after the sale to Graffam, which included the right of
redemption. The testimony given on this
Page 117 U. S. 190
subject by Graffam's counsel, Fairfield, indicates the object of
this move. "I formed," says he,
"an opinion in the premises that Newhall had a right to redeem
the Graffam title or claim, and as I was counsel for both, I stated
to Newhall that he had the right, if he desired it, and told him
and Peter Graffam also that one had better buy the other out and
hold both claims. Newhall was not disposed to do it, and Graffam
was, so I settled the matter in that way."
Then the pretended sale to Doble, at the time and under the
circumstances it was made, shows a design to place the property
beyond the complainant's reach. It is very obvious from the
evidence that this was a sham sale. Graffam evidently saw that a
day of reckoning was coming, and the property must be placed out of
his hands. A deed was drawn, with the nominal consideration of
$5,000, first to N. L. Graffam, one of Peter Graffam's counsel in
the case. That was abandoned. The deed was changed by erasing N. L.
Graffam's name and inserting Doble's, under an arrangement in
writing, which writing was called for and promised, but never
produced, but we infer from Doble's own testimony that he was to be
held harmless. This change was not effected until the 13th of July,
1880, three days after the bill was filed in this case, but the
date of the deed is the 6th of July, and the date of the
acknowledgment (taken before the attorney, Fairfield) is the 7th of
July, which, of course, cannot be the true date, since it is
testified that the acknowledgment was not taken until Doble gave
his check, which is dated the 13th. Doble testifies that he was to
pay $1,600 for the property, the consideration in the deed being
$5,000, and the property worth $10,000. The transaction is marked
all over with evidences of fraud and simulation.
Looking at the whole case, the traces of design on the part of
Graffam to mislead the complainant, to lull her into security, and
thus to prevent her from redeeming the property, are abundantly
manifest, and such design must be assumed as an established fact in
the case.
It is hardly necessary to cite authorities on a matter the
solution of which depends on the application of such obvious
principles of equity and justice. As already perceived, we
Page 117 U. S. 191
do not rest our conclusion alone upon the gross inadequacy of
the consideration of the sale, but upon that, in connection with
the unfair conduct of the defendant in taking advantage of the
complainant's ignorance of the sale and giving her no intelligible
notice or intimation of it, or of his intended seizure of the
property after the year of redemption had passed, but standing by
and seeing her expend large sums of money upon it, even after the
year had expired. This, we think, presents a case sufficiently
strong to justify the action of the court below, at least to the
extent to which it went in making the decree appealed from. A few
legal propositions, with a reference to the decisions on which they
rest, is all that we deem it necessary to state.
It was formerly the rule in England in chancery sales that until
confirmation of the master's report, the bidding would be opened
upon a mere offer to advance the price ten percent. 2 Daniell's
Ch.Pr., 1st Ed. 924; 2d Ed. by Perkins, 1465*, 1467*; Sugden,
Vendors & Purchasers, 14th ed., 114. But Lord Eldon expressed
much dissatisfaction with this practice of opening biddings upon a
mere offer of an advanced price, as tending to diminish confidence
in such sales, to keep bidders from attending, and to diminish the
amount realized.
White v. Wilson, 14 Ves. 151;
Williams v. Attleborough, Turner & Russell 75;
White v. Damon, 7 Ves. 34. Lord Eldon's views were finally
adopted in England in the "Sale of Land by Auction Act," 1867, 30
& 31 Vict. c. 48, ยง 7, so that now the highest bidder at a sale
by auction of land, under an order of the court, provided he has
bid a sum equal to or higher than the reserved price (if any), will
be declared and allowed the purchaser unless the court or judge, on
the ground of fraud or improper conduct in the management of the
sale, upon the application of any person interested in the land,
either opens the biddings or orders the property to be resold. 1
Sugden on Vendors & Purchasers, 14th ed., by Perkins 114, note
a1.
In this country, Lord Eldon's views were adopted at an early day
by the courts, and the rule has become almost universal that a sale
will not be set aside for inadequacy of price unless
Page 117 U. S. 192
the inadequacy be so great as to shock the conscience or unless
there be additional circumstances against its fairness, being very
much the rule that always prevailed in England as to setting aside
sales after the master's report had been confirmed.
Livingston
v. Byrne, 11 Johns. 555, 566 (1814);
Williamson v.
Dale, 3 Johns.Ch. 290, 292 (1818);
Howell v. Baker, 4
Johns.Ch. 118 (1819);
Tiernan v. Wilson, 6 Johns.Ch. 411
(1822);
Duncan v. Dodd, 2 Paige 99 (1830);
Collier v.
Whipple, 13 Wend. 224, 226 (1834);
Tripp v. Cook, 26
Wend. 143;
Lefevre v. Laraway, 22 Barb. 167, 173;
Seaman v. Riggins, 2 N.J.Eq. 214;
Eberhart v.
Gilchrist, 11 N.J.Eq. 167;
Campbell v. Gardner, 11
N.J.Eq. 423;
Marlatt v. Warwick, 18 N.J.Eq. 108;
Kloepping v. Stellmacher, 21 N.J.Eq. 328;
Wetzler v.
Schaumann, 24 N.J.Eq. 60;
Carson's Sale, 6 Watts 140;
Surget v. Byers, Hempst. 715;
Byers v.
Surget, 19 How. 303;
Andrews v. Scotton, 2
Bland 629;
Glenn v. Clapp, 11 G. & J. 1;
House v.
Walker, 4 Md.Ch. 62;
Young v. Teague, Bailey Eq. 14;
White v. Floyd, Speer's Eq. 351;
Hart v. Bleight,
3 T.B.Mon. 273;
Reed v. Carter, 1 Blackford 410;
Pierce v. Kneeland, 7 Wis. 224;
Montague v.
Dawes, 14 Allen 369;
Drinan v. Nichols, 115 Mass.
353.
From the cases here cited we may draw the general conclusion
that if the inadequacy of price is so gross as to shock the
conscience or if, in addition to gross inadequacy, the purchaser
has been guilty of any unfairness or has taken any undue advantage,
or if the owner of the property or party interested in it has been
for any other reason misled or surprised, then the sale will be
regarded as fraudulent and void or the party injured will be
permitted to redeem the property sold. Great inadequacy requires
only slight circumstances of unfairness in the conduct of the party
benefited by the sale to raise the presumption of fraud.
In
Howell v. Baker, ubi supra, where the case was a
sale by a sheriff, grossly inadequate as to price, and was made on
a stormy day, and the attorney was the purchaser, and no one was
present but him and the sheriff, Chancellor Kent held the
Page 117 U. S. 193
purchaser as a trustee for both parties, and allowed the debtor
to redeem.
In
Kloepping v. Stellmacher, where there was a
sheriff's sale for $52 of property worth $2,000, belonging to a
party who was ignorant, stupid, and perverse, and would not believe
that his property would be sold for such a paltry amount, though
told that it would be, Chancellor Zabriskie, after conceding that
mere inadequacy of price at a sheriff's sale is not sufficient
ground to set aside a conveyance, added:
"But when such gross inadequacy is combined with fraud or
mistake or any other ground of relief in equity, it will incline
the court strongly to afford relief. The sale in this case is a
great oppression on the complainants. They are ignorant, stupid,
perverse, and poor. They lose by it all their property, and are ill
fitted to acquire more. They are such as this court should incline
to protect notwithstanding perverseness."
The chancellor allowed the complainant to redeem the property by
paying the purchase price and costs.
Byers v.
Surget, 19 How. 303, was a case of sheriff's sale
at a very grossly inadequate price, and the purchaser was an
attorney in the case. Mr. Justice Daniel, delivering the opinion of
this Court, after giving the history of the transaction, said:
"Such is the history of a transaction which the appellant asks
of this Court to sanction, and it seems pertinent here to inquire
under what system of civil policy, under what code of law or
ethics, a transaction like that disclosed by the record in this
case can be excused or even palliated."
The two cases cited from the Massachusetts Reports were sales by
mortgagees, but the principles on which these cases rest are the
same as in those of sale by the sheriff or other officer. In
Drinan v. Nichols, the sale was made in apparent good
faith, except that the mortgagee knew that the owner had paid the
accruing interest to the former owner who had given the mortgage
and expected that he would pay it over to the mortgagee. But this
not being done, the mortgagee made the sale without giving any
notice to the owner. The court, speaking through Judge Endicott,
said:
"The mortgagee knew that the plaintiff, as administrator of her
husband's estate, intending to
Page 117 U. S. 194
protect the interests of his minor children, had actually paid
the money through the accustomed channel, and expected it would be
paid by Pope to the mortgagee. With such knowledge of the position
and expectation of the plaintiffs, a proper execution of the power
and a due regard to the rights and interest of the mortgagor or
those having his estate in the premises required of the mortgagee,
when after a reasonable time it became evident that Pope would not
pay, that notice should be given to the plaintiff, and a bare
compliance with the terms of the power was not sufficient."
This case, in its principles, is very analogous to the one now
under consideration.
Mr. Kerr, in his treatise on Fraud and Mistake, says:
"Inadequacy of consideration, if it be of so gross a nature as
to amount, in itself, to conclusive and decisive evidence of fraud,
is a ground for cancelling the transaction."
Kerr on Fraud, Am.Ed. 186. Chancellor Desaussure, in the case of
Butler v. Haskell, 4 Desaussure 651, 697, on the same
subject, says:
"I consider the result of the great body of the cases to be that
wherever the court perceives that a sale of property has been made
at a grossly inadequate price -- such as would shock a correct mind
-- this inadequacy furnishes a strong and in general a conclusive
presumption, though there be no direct proof of fraud, that an
undue advantage has been taken of the ignorance, the weakness, or
the distress and necessity of the vendor, and this imposes on the
purchaser a necessity to remove this violent presumption by the
clearest evidence of the fairness of his conduct."
It is true these observations, both of Mr. Kerr and Chancellor
Desaussure, were made in reference to private sales between
parties, and do not strictly apply to judicial sales. But they show
that great inadequacy of price is a circumstance which a court of
equity will always regard with suspicion unless it appears by the
circumstances of the case or by evidence that it is no fault of the
buyer.
Some technical objections, however, have been raised. It is said
that it was error in the court to allow the amendment to redeem. We
see no error in this. The case as set out in the original bill was
one either for annulling the sheriff's sale and decreeing an
unconditional delivery of the property or for a
Page 117 U. S. 195
redemption on payment of the amount due. The original prayer was
for the former, and for such other and further relief as to the
court should seem meet and the nature of the case might require.
The prayer might have been in the alternative either for an
unconditional delivery of the property or, in case the court should
not deem that proper, then for leave to redeem. Had there been an
offer to pay the debt, the prayer for general relief would probably
have been sufficient to enable the court to decree a redemption.
But as the case made by the bill was full to the purpose of such a
decree, except the formal offer, and as the proofs supported the
bill to that extent at least, we think the court did perfectly
right in allowing the amendment to be made. Lord Redesdale
says:
"If upon hearing the cause the plaintiff appears entitled to
relief, . . . if the addition of parties alone is wanted, an order
is usually made for the cause to stand over, with liberty to amend
the bill by adding the proper parties, and in some cases where a
matter has not been put in issue by bill with sufficient precision,
the court has, upon hearing the cause, given the plaintiff liberty
to amend the bill for the purpose of making the necessary
alteration."
Redesdale Eq.Pl. 326,
and see 90 U.
S. 23 Wall. 527.
"So the court will sometimes at the hearing permit the prayer of
the bill to be amended so as to make it more consistent with the
case made by the plaintiff than the one he has already
introduced."
1 Daniell's Ch.Pr., 1st ed., 474; 2d ed. 480;
and see
76 U. S. Neales,
9 Wall. 1;
Hardin v. Boyd, 113 U.
S. 756,
113 U. S. 764.
So a formal charge of fraud may be added when it is necessary and
has been omitted.
Wamburzee v. Kennedy, 4 Desaussure
480.
It is also objected that as the bill was originally founded on a
charge of fraud, and the fraud was not proved, the bill should have
been dismissed. It is true the fraud and conspiracy may not have
been proved to the extent and in precisely the aspect in which they
were charged in the bill, so as to authorize the specific relief
originally prayed for, but we think we have shown that very
material fraud was proved sufficient to justify the court in
relieving the complainant against the lapse of time for redeeming
her land.
Page 117 U. S. 196
Other objections of a technical character are also raised, but
we do not deem it necessary to notice them. Our views of the merits
of the case are such that while the complainant has not seen fit to
take an appeal, and therefore can only ask for an affirmance of the
decree, yet that no mere formal objections ought to stand in the
way of such affirmance. A decree cannot justly be rendered for the
defendants.
The decree of the circuit court is
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE MILLER, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE WOODS, MR.
JUSTICE MATTHEWS, and MR. JUSTICE GRAY, dissenting.
In a great many of the states of the Union, a period is allowed
of from twelve to fifteen months to redeem real estate from sale
under execution by payment of the amount for which it was sold, and
interest on that amount. In nearly all these states, this right of
redemption attaches in sales made under chancery decrees as well as
judgments at law. In such cases, whether the statute, as in
Massachusetts, provides that the conveyance shall be made by the
sheriff or other officer immediately after the sale, or, as in many
of the western states, only at the end of the time allowed for
redemption, the title of the purchaser does not become absolute
until that time has expired. In the case before us, it is not
denied that the appellant received the sheriff's deed in accordance
with the law of the state, and that the appellee failed to redeem
within the time allowed. It is of the utmost importance where this
redemption law prevails that the right thus granted should be
strictly exercised according to the statute. For, in addition to
the sanctity which the law concedes to judicial sales, founded on
well considered reasons of policy as old as the law itself, the
favor of allowing the debtor one year more to save his land, after
judgment and sale under execution have fixed his rights, only adds
to his obligation to exercise the right thus granted in strict
accordance with its terms.
In the case before us, the judge who rendered the decree below
stated that the conspiracy charged in the bill was not
Page 117 U. S. 197
proved, nor did he rely upon any act of fraud, and for that
reason he refused to set aside the sale, but permitted, under a new
prayer in the bill, the appellee to redeem on payment of the debt,
interest, and all costs, including fees of counsel. The counsel of
appellee in the brief expressly declines to rely upon an actual
fraud on the part of Graffam. In our opinion, there is no evidence
of such misconduct on his part as afforded any ground, in law or
equity, to justify appellee in her failure to redeem from the sale.
There is no reason why she did not pay the judgment rendered
against her, of which she had full notice. Certainly no obstruction
was interposed to her exercise of the right of redemption, and no
promise made to induce her to forego it. Yet after Graffam had
acquired a complete legal title under judicial proceedings, which
were unimpeachable, the court treats the case as if the whole
matter was still
in fieri, and gives further time for
redemption. I do not deem it appropriate to enter into the
discussion of the evidence in this case, but I dissent from the
judgment and the opinion of the court as leading to evil results in
discrediting judicial sales and embarrassing the due and just
exercise of the right of redemption by turning it into a question
of judicial discretion.
JUSTICES WOODS, MATTHEWS, and GRAY concur in this opinion.