GEORGE v. BULLARD

Supreme Court of Georgia1934-02-24No. No. 9721

178 Ga. 589

Summary · law.co

Holding. The court affirmed the trial court's decision to overrule the defendant's demurrer. A cause of action arising from a fraudulent concealment by a landlord of a wrongful sale of jointly held cotton is not barred by the statute of limitations when the plaintiff alleges he was prevented from discovering the fraud through the defendant's intentional misrepresentations and evasions.

In 1922, Bullard and George, who had a landlord-sharecropper relationship, agreed that cotton stored in a warehouse under a joint receipt would not be sold without mutual consent. Bullard, the landlord, sold the cotton without George's knowledge or permission in December 1922 and kept the proceeds. When George inquired about the cotton during subsequent annual settlements, Bullard gave evasive answers suggesting the price was too low to sell, leading George to believe the cotton remained unsold. George did not discover the sale until 1932, when Bullard's conduct toward him changed and Bullard filed suit against him in a lower court.

George sued for an accounting and recovery of his share of the cotton proceeds. Bullard moved to dismiss the case on the ground that it was barred by the statute of limitations, since the alleged wrongful sale occurred in 1922. George argued that the statute should not bar his claim because Bullard had fraudulently concealed the sale through deliberate deception, preventing George from discovering the wrong through reasonable diligence. The court rejected Bullard's demurrer, finding that under the particular relationship between the parties and the nature of the transaction, George's allegations of fraudulent concealment sufficiently stated a valid cause of action not subject to dismissal on limitations grounds.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Whether a statute of limitations defense applies when the defendant fraudulently concealed wrongdoing
Whether allegations of fraudulent concealment and inability to discover fraud through ordinary diligence state a valid cause of action
Effect of the landlord-sharecropper relationship on limitations liability

Procedural posture

Bullard brought suit against George in August 1932; George's demurrer to the petition was overruled, and George excepted, raising the sole question of whether the cause of action was barred by the statute of limitations.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

Bell, J.

In August, 1932, Bullard brought suit against George, and the defendant’s demurrer to the petition being overruled, the defendant excepted. The sole question is whether the cause of action was barred by the statute of limitations. The petition alleged substantially the following facts: The plaintiff was a share cropper of the defendant in the year 1922. In the fall of that year they had a settlement in which the landlord was paid-for all ad vanees made to the cropper to aid in making the crops for that year, and after such settlement it was found that several bales of cotton were subject to equal division between them. But in lieu of division, the plaintiff, who was the cropper, deposited the cotton in a certain warehouse and obtained a warehouse receipt therefor issued jointly to the plaintiff and the defendant, the landlord. All of this was done at the direction of the defendant. This receipt was delivered to and accepted by the landlord with the understanding that the cotton would not be sold until- such time as the landlord and the cropper should both agree upon. After obtaining, possession of the receipts under this agreement, the landlord in December of the same year (1922), without the knowledge or consent of the cropper, sold the cotton and appropriated the proceeds to his own use.

The plaintiff in his petition is seeking an accounting and recovery of his share of the proceeds. The plaintiff further alleged the following: He continued to live upon the defendant’s land as a cropper until the year 1930, when the relation was changed to that of landlord and tenant. On the occasion of each annual settlement when the plaintiff would make inquiry about the cotton stored in 1922, the defendant would reply that the price was too low to sell at that time, or would evade the plaintiff’s question by saying that he was in a hurry and would see him later; and in view of these statements the plaintiff did not suspect any fraud or unfair dealing on the part of the defendant until the year 1932, when the defendant “ceased to stop by petitioner’s home” and filed some kind of suit in a justice’s court against the plaintiff in July of that year, as a result of which the plaintiff “began to grow suspicious” and on inquiry of the warehouseman discovered “for the first time” that the defendant had sold the cotton in December, 1922. The repeated statements of the defendant as narrated were made with intent to deceive and defraud the plaintiff and to lull him into a false sense of security, and accomplished that result.

The plaintiff thus undertook to show that he had been debarred or deterred from his action by fraud of the defendant, and that he could not sooner have discovered the fraud by the exercise of ordinary diligence. The allegations made for this purpose were unnecessary to the statement of a valid cause of action, unaffected by the statute of limitations, in view of the relationship of the parties and the nature of the transaction as averred in the petition.

Under the principles stated in the headnotes and the authorities there cited, the petition was not subject to demurrer upon the ground that the cause of action was barred. The court did not err in overruling the demurrer.

Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur, except Hutcheson, J., disqualified.