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110 Ind. 395

Fletcher v. McGill

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided March 8, 1887

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1887-03-08

<p>Sheriff’s Sale.—Inadequacy of Price.— Unfairness.—Surprise err Mistake.— Fraud.—Redemption.—Although a sheriff’s sale will not be set aside for mere inadequacy of price, yet, if the inadequacy be so gross as to shock the conscience, or if, in addition to gross inadequacy, the purchaser has been guilty of any unfairness, or if the owner of the property has for any reason been misled or surprised, the sale will be regarded as fraudulent and the party injured will be permitted to redeem.</p> <p>Same.—Presumption of Fraud.—Purchaser Musi Show Good Faith.—Where there is great inadequacy of price, only slight circumstances of unfairness in the person benefited by the', sale are required to raise the presumption of fraud, and it is then incumbent on him to repel such presumption by affirmatively showing that he acted in good faith and took no unfair advantage.</p> <p>Same.— Want of Actual Knowledge of Sale.—Suit to Amid After Year for Redemption.—Where, at a sheriff’s sale had without the actual knowledge of the execution defendant, his property, consisting of separate parcels, is bid in at a grossly inadequate price and in a manner indicative of unfairness, and the circumstances are such that the purchaser must have known of the owner’s want of actual knowledge of the sale, such purchaser can take no advantage by permitting the year for-redemption to expire without putting the owner on his guard ; and the latter, upon obtaining notice of the sale after the time for redemption, may, if he proceed promptly, sue to avoid it.</p> <p>Same.—Estoppel. — Ratification. — Corporation. — Stock Certificate. — Right to Withhold Payment.—Where property is sold under a judgment rendered on a promissory note given for the purchase-price of corporation stock, the certificate of which is withheld by the corporation as security for the payment of the debt, the judgment defendant, by demanding and receiving the certificate after notice of the sale, does not thereby affirm the sale and estop himself to question its validity, unless it appears that the certificate had been rightfully retained by the corporation, and that his right to demand its delivery to him depended upon his first having paid the debt.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1887-03-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently September 1989 · most notably Bundles v. Baker (1988), Ross v. Stackhouse (1888)

19 state decisions

6018871890190019101920193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1On Petition foe a Rehearing.

Mitchell, J.

¶2Upon a careful consideration of the elaborate argument presented by appellants in support of their petition for a rehearing, we are constrained, nevertheless, to adhere to the general conclusion at which we arrived at the hearing of this cause.

¶3We did not overlook the fact that the appellants in their original, brief admitted that the bids made upon some of the parcels of land were merely nominal, and that they consented that as to such parcels the sale might be set aside. Notwithstanding this, we recognized the privilege of the appellee to insist—as he did—that the bidding in and accepting of a conveyance of other valuable parcels, at merely nominal prices, when the parcel first bid in was worth, in cash, nearly six times the amount of the debt, evinced such a design needlessly to sacrifice the appellee’s property, as infected the whole transaction. The price paid for each parcel was grossly inadequate. It can not be admitted in such a case, that as to those parcels in respect to which the disparity between the value of the property and the amount bid is the greatest, so great, indeed, that to permit the sale to stand would cast reproach upon the law, the purchaser, by consenting that as to them the sale may be set aside, may rescue the purchase as to other parcels in respect to which the price is also grossly inadequate. The whole transaction takes color from the general purpose and design which appears in each separate part.

¶4*408The circumstance that some of the property thus bid in, at a nominal figure, was not at the time owned by the appellee, furnishes no mitigation when the whole transaction is considered. All that can be said in respect to those parcels is, the design of the bidder miscarried, because he did not calculate correctly as to the title. His purpose to obtain all the execution defendant’s property at a merely nominal outlay is not the less apparent.

¶5The suggestion is made that the lien of the judgment to which the appellants have been subrogated has expired, and that hence the decree should be modified so as to require the appellee to redeem within a time to be fixed by the court.

¶6Upon consideration of this suggestion, it is now ordered that the decree of the Marion Superior Court be so modified as to require the appellee within ninety days from this date, to pay the amount due on the judgment upon which the sale was made, together with the interest and costs, including the costs of the sale.

¶7The petition for a rehearing is overruled, with costs.

¶8Filed April 27, 1887.

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