Buckingham v. Clark

8 Citing cases

  1. Starzec v. Kida

    183 Conn. 41 (Conn. 1981)   Cited 47 times
    Affirming imposition of constructive trust for benefit of testator's children where testator gave property to second wife on condition she devise property to his children

    Equity employs the constructive trust to remedy the unjust enrichment which results when a testator leaves property to a person in reliance on that person's subsequently disregarded promise to convey the property to the testator's intended beneficiary. Redke v. Silvertrust, 6 Cal.3d 94, 490 P.2d 805 (1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 1041, 92 S.Ct. 1316, 31 L.Ed.2d 583 (1972); Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204, 23 A. 1085 (1891); Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, 205 (1874); Olsen v. First National Bank, 76 S.D. 605, 83 N.W.2d 842 (1957). See comment, 27 Yale L.J. 389 (1918).

  2. In re Faber's, Inc.

    360 F. Supp. 946 (D. Conn. 1973)   Cited 12 times
    Finding no constructive trust over pre-petition cash deposits that a debtor-retailer received from consumers for the purchase of goods

    Id. at 356, 71 A.2d 80. Connecticut courts will find constructive fraud only when specific conditions are met. These are present in a small class of cases: "Equity is much more prone to find such fraud in cases where property is bequeathed or devised to one upon his promise to deal with it in a certain way; Hanney v. Clark, 124 Conn. way; Hanney v. Clark [ 124 Conn. 140, at page 145, 198 A. 577, at page 579]; and that is illustrated by our cases of Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, 205, and Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204, 209, 23 A. 1085. See McLaughlin v. Thomas, 86 Conn. 252, 258, 85 A. 370.

  3. Bird v. Plunkett

    139 Conn. 491 (Conn. 1953)   Cited 34 times
    In Bird v. Plunkett, 139 Conn. 491, 502, 95 A.2d 71 (1953), the court, quoting Ames, Lectures on Legal History, p. 312, posed the following rhetorical question: "[W]hen the legislature has enacted that no will shall be revoked except in certain specified modes, by what right can the court declare a will revoked by some other mode?

    Welsh v. James, 408 Ill. 18, 21, 95 N.E.2d 872. The latter case reaches the result in accord with the weight of authority discussed above, because the vice in the legal remedy is not cured by resort to equity. The net effect is the same and would still result in a disregard of the statutes of descent or devise and in adding a punishment for crime not provided by the legislature and partaking of attainder and forfeiture. Furthermore, in so far as the instant case is concerned, the lack of any allegation of intent on the part of Plunkett to kill for the purpose of obtaining his wife's property is sufficient to differentiate the case from Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, and Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204, 23 A. 1085, cited by the plaintiffs in support of a claimed constructive trust. In each of those cases, the bequest had been obtained by an express representation that it would be applied for the benefit of the person claiming the constructive trust.

  4. Worobey v. Sibieth

    136 Conn. 352 (Conn. 1949)   Cited 58 times

    er, where equity, in order to work out justice between the parties, will itself raise a trust; Millard v. Green, 94 Conn. 597, 603, 110 A. 177; and such trusts do not fall within the rule stated above. Ward v. Ward, 59 Conn. 188, 196, 22 A. 149. Within this category fall constructive trusts, the basis of which is fraud, actual or constructive. Maltbie v. Olds, 88 Conn. 633, 639, 92 A. 403; Monski v. Lukomske, 118 Conn. 635, 640, 173 A. 897; Van Auken v. Tyrrell, 130 Conn. 289, 292, 33 A.2d 339. It would serve no present purpose to attempt to catalogue the various situations which fall within the designation constructive fraud, even if that were possible. Our early cases are reviewed in Todd v. Munson, 53 Conn. 579, 589, 4 A. 99. Equity is much more prone to find such fraud in cases where property is bequeathed or devised to one upon his promise to deal with it in a certain way; Hanney v. Clark, supra, 145; and that is illustrated by our cases of Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, 205, and Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204, 209, 23 A. 1085. See McLaughlin v. Thomas, 86 Conn. 252, 258, 85 A. 370. Apart from such situations, we have said that the basis of such trusts may be found in "fraud, misrepresentation, imposition, circumvention, artifice or concealment, or abuse of confidential relations."

  5. McLaughlin v. Thomas

    85 A. 370 (Conn. 1912)   Cited 18 times

    The beneficiary was held to this promise as a fraud, upon proof of his intention not to perform. Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, 203, 205; see also Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204, 209, 23 A. 1085; Sallies v. Johnson, 85 Conn. 77, 80, 81 A. 974. Complaint is made because the court did not instruct the jury as requested, that "in order to avoid a contract on the ground of fraud, the repudiation must take place within a reasonable time after the fraud is discovered.

  6. Clark v. Callahan

    66 A. 618 (Md. 1907)   Cited 18 times
    In Clark v. Callahan, 105 Md. 600, 66 A. 618 (1907), a Colonel Raphun was separated from his wife and undertook to change the beneficiaries of his certificates with two fraternal orders so that benefits would be payable on his death equally to his married daughter, Mrs. Callahan, and to his foster daughter.

    The facts of the case of Hirsh v. Auer, supra, are remarkably suggestive of the case at bar. In Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204, a testator bequeathed a sum of money to his daughter, and the balance of his property to his wife. Wishing to pay in his lifetime the amount bequeathed to the daughter, the testator and his wife gave a joint and several note to her for the amount, whereupon a new will was made, leaving the entire estate to the wife, with the understanding that if the note was not paid in the testator's lifetime, it should be paid by the wife from the estate so willed her. After testator's decease, the note was disallowed as a claim against the estate; and it was held in a suit on the note against the wife, that as the note was signed by the wife in consideration of the property willed to her, it created a trust in plaintiff's favor in the property so willed.

  7. Bryan v. Bigelow

    60 A. 266 (Conn. 1905)   Cited 23 times

    Woodruff v. Marsh, 63 Conn. 125, 141. The cases of Dowd v. Tucker, 41 Conn. 197, Buckingham v. Clark, 61 id. 204, and other cases in which trusts ex maleficio have been declared against persons who have obtained property by promising to apply it to certain purposes, have been cited as applicable to this proceeding. Assuming that while the $50,000 was still in the hands of the executor the Superior Court, as a court of equity, might, in this proceeding, in directing to whom the money should be paid, have considered whether if paid to Mrs. Bennett, or the residuary legatees, they or either of them could be held to be trustees ex maleficio by reason of an express or implied promise to apply the money to the purposes named in the sealed letter, we cannot find error in the judgment of the Superior Court, since neither the evidence excluded nor the facts proved show any agreement, express or implied, by Mrs. Bennett or the other residuary legatees, to accept the money upon the trust described in Exhibit 1, or that during the lifetime of the testator they even knew of any of the provisions of the twelf

  8. Trustees of Amherst College v. Ritch

    10 Misc. 503 (N.Y. Misc. 1894)

    On a bill in equity brought to compel him to convey it was held that he took the property under a trust for her, which a court of equity would enforce. To the same general effect is Buckingham v. Clark, 61 Conn. 204. In Gaither v. Gaither, 3 Md. Ch. 158, it was held that if an heir or personal representative or devisee, whose interest would be prejudiced by the insertion of a provision in a will in favor of some third person, induces the testator to omit such provision by assurances either by words or silent assent that his wishes shall be executed as if the provision were made, such assurance will raise a trust which will be enforced in equity on the ground of fraud.