A man and his sister conspired to defraud an insurance company;
the former having insured his life disappeared and the latter as
beneficiary filed proof of death, brought suit, and recovered
judgment after verdict by a jury; the company defended on ground
that insured was alive and claim was fraudulent. The judgment was
affirmed, and the company paid the money into court. In order to
have the suit prosecuted, the beneficiary had made contingent fee
contracts with attorneys which had been filed, and the money was
distributed from the registry of the court to her and the various
parties holding assignments of interests therein. The insurance
company, having afterwards found the insured was alive, sued in
equity the beneficiary and also her counsel and their assignees to
recover the money received by them respectively. No charge of fraud
was made against anyone except the beneficiary, but notice of the
fraud was charged against all by virtue of the company's defense.
The defendants claimed that, under the Seventh Amendment, the
question of death of person insured could not again be litigated.
The bill was dismissed as to all except the beneficiary.
Page 203 U. S. 65
Held, as to the defendants other than the beneficiary,
that, as the action was prosecuted in good faith, whatever notice
they may have had by virtue of the company's defense was purged by
the verdict, and although they had received their respective shares
from the proceeds paid into court, it was the same in law as though
they had been paid in money directly by the judgment creditor, and
it could not be recovered.
Whether, in view of the Seventh Amendment, a federal court
sitting in equity may inquire into whether a judgment based on a
verdict was obtained by fraud, and, if so found, set the verdict
aside, argued, but not decided.
The facts are stated in the opinion.
Page 203 U. S. 72
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a bill in equity brought in the circuit court to enjoin
the setting up of a judgment at law recovered in the same circuit
court upon three policies of life insurance on the ground that the
judgment was obtained by fraud. It also seeks to compel the
plaintiff in the action at law, and other parties to whom interests
in the policies were assigned, to repay the sums which they
received upon them. The judgment was rendered in a case which came
before this Court, and the dramatic circumstances of the alleged
death are set forth in the report.
Fidelity Mutual Life
Association v. Mettler, 185 U. S. 308. The
appellant is the plaintiff in error in that case, having changed
its name. After the date of the judgment, the appellant discovered
that Hunter, the party whose life was insured, was alive, and that
the recovery was the result of a deliberate plot. Thereupon it
forthwith brought this bill. One of the defenses set up and argued
below and here was that, by the Seventh Amendment to the
Constitution, no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined
in any court of the United States than according to the rules of
the common law. On the facts alleged and proved, the circuit court
entered a decree against the plaintiff at law, Mettler, now Smythe,
but dismissed the bill as against the assignees of partial
interests in the policies. The insurance company appealed to this
Court.
The material facts are these: by way of a contingent fee for the
services in collecting the insurance, Mrs. Mettler assigned to the
present defendant Clark and his partners one-third interest in the
policies, with an additional sum in case statutory damages and
attorney's fees were recovered. This afterwards came to Clark
alone. Clark and Mrs. Mettler assigned $500 each, from their
respective
Page 203 U. S. 73
interests, to the defendant Culberson as a contingent fee for
argument and services in this Court. Clark also employed the
defendant Spoonts, it would seem, on a contingent fee. Finally, he
mortgaged his right to the Phillips Investment Company. When the
judgment was recovered, before execution, the insurance company
paid the amount ($24,028.25) into court. Out of this, the clerk
paid to Mrs. Mettler $11,616; to Clark, $8,346; to Spoonts on
Clark's order, $1,500; to Culberson, $1,026, and to the Phillips
Investment Company, $1,540.24. It is these sums, other than that
paid to Mrs. Mettler, that are in question here.
It will not be necessary to consider the constitutional question
under the Seventh Amendment, to which we have referred, or some
other questions which were raised, because we are of opinion that
the appellees are entitled to keep their money, even if the
judgment can be impeached for fraud. They all got the legal title
to the money which was paid to them, or, what is the same thing,
got the legal title transferred to their order. That being so, the
appellant must show some equity before their legal title can be
disturbed. It founds its claim to such an equity on the mode in
which the judgment which induced it to part with the title to its
money was obtained. But fraud, of course, gives rise only to a
personal claim. It goes to the motives, not to the formal
constituents, of a legal transfer,
Rodliff v. Dallinger,
141 Mass. 1, 6, and the rule is familiar that it can affect a title
only when the owner takes with notice or without having given
value.
Fletcher v.
Peck, 6 Cranch 87,
10 U. S. 133; 2
Williams, Vendor & Purchaser 674.
See The Eliza Lines,
199 U. S. 119,
199 U. S. 131.
The question is whether the appellant can make out such a case as
that.
It is said that the title of the appellees stands on the
judgment, and that if the judgment fails, the title fails. But that
mode of statement is not sufficiently precise. The judgment hardly
can be said to be part of the appellees' title. It simply afforded
the appellant a motive for its payment into court.
Page 203 U. S. 74
The appellees derive their title immediately from Mrs. Mettler,
and remotely from the act of the appellant. They stand exactly as
if the appellant had handed over the $24,000 in gold to her and she
thereupon had handed their proportion to them. We are putting no
emphasis on the fact that the thing transferred was money. The
appellees knew from what fund they were paid, from what source it
came, and why it was paid to Mrs. Mettler. We are insisting only
that the title had passed to them. But we repeat that, as the title
had passed, the appellant must find some equity before it can
disturb it, and we now add that, as there is no question that the
appellees took for value -- that is, in payment for their services,
or, if it be preferred, in performance of Mrs. Mettler's contingent
promise -- the equity must be founded upon notice.
The notice to be shown is notice of the fact that the judgment
which induced the appellant's payment was obtained by fraud. But
notice cannot be established by the mere fact that, while the
appellees held an interest in the policies only, they were
assignees of choses in action, and took them subject to the
equities. That is due to a chose in action's not being negotiable.
It does not stand on notice. The general proposition was decided in
United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U.
S. 321,
200 U. S.
333-334, and
United States v. Clark,
200 U. S. 601,
200 U. S.
607-608, and earlier in
Judson v.
Corcoran, 17 How. 612,
58 U. S. 615,
and, we have no doubt, is the law of England. Of course, the
assignee of an ordinary contract can only stand in the shoes of the
party with whom the contract was made. In the discussions of the
rule which we have seen, we have found no other reason offered, as
no other is necessary. But the assumption of the good faith of the
assignee occurs in more cases than one.
The principle which we apply is further illustrated by the
priority given to the later of two equitable titles, if the legal
title be added to it, 2 Pomeroy, Eq.3d ed., ยงยง 727, 768, by the
doctrine of tacking, and, in some degree, by the great
distinction
Page 203 U. S. 75
recognized in other respects between the holder of title under
an executed contract and a party to a contract merely executory.
See 1 Williams, V. & P. 540, and cases cited. We may
add further that, even if we were wrong, the equities to which an
assignee takes subject are equities existing at the time of the
assignment, 1 Williams V. & P. 584, and that the notice with
which he is supposed to be charged as assignee can be of nothing
more. Therefore, merely as assignees, the appellees had not notice
of the as yet unaccomplished fraud in obtaining the judgment. The
policies were honest contracts, and it was an interest in the
policies which was assigned, at least to Clark.
The appellant is driven, therefore, to contend, as it did
contend at the argument, that notice of the denial that Hunter was
dead, in the suit on the policy, was notice of the fraud. But it is
admitted that the appellees all acted in good faith; that they
believed the plaintiff's case. In such circumstances, even if the
answer had gone further and had charged the plaintiff with all that
the present bill charges against her, when a jury had decided that
the charges were groundless, a judgment had been entered on the
verdict, and the insurance company had accepted the result by
paying the money into court without waiting for an execution, it
would be impossible to say that the supposed notice was not purged.
The appellees were not bound to contemplate future discoveries of
what they honestly believed untrue, and a bill to impeach the final
act of the law.
See Bank of the United States v.
Bank of Washington, 6 Pet. 8,
31 U. S. 19.
Decree affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN and MR. JUSTICE WHITE dissent.
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA took no part in the decision of this
case.