Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/739

 724 FEDERAL REPORTER. �influence npon complainant's mind, if disclosed. If it had been known by her that her copartners wished to purchase part of her interest, and yet did not wish her to knowthe fact, and had therefore employed Marshall to purchase in his own name for them, it might well have aroused suspicion in her mind, and very probably would have led her to decline to sell, orcaused her to employother counsel, or to institute further inquiry as to the character and value of the property. It has been held that if an attorney can show that he is entitled to purchase property, notwithstanding his character of attor- ney, yet if, instead of openly purchasing it, he purchases it in the name of a third person without disolosing the fact, the purchase is void. Weeks, Attys. at Law, ^63, and cases cited. The same rule must prevail where the attorney, while professing to purchase for himself from his client, really purchases in part for his client's copartners, and suppresses this fact. �5. The parties interested -with Marshall in the purchase, and who afterwards took conveyances from him, stand in his shoes, so far as the complainant's rights are concerned. They knew that the relation of attorney and client existed between complainant and Marshall, and they took the chances as to the validity of the latter's purchase. If the sale was void as to him, it is also void as to them, and in that case it is unnecessary to inquire into the allegations or examine the proof s as to misconduct on the part of complainant in connection with the sale in question. �When an attorney purchases from his client in his own name, but in secret trust for third parties, it will not, of course, be insisted that such third parties can be regarded as innocent purchasers, or as entitled to any greater rights or better title than the attorney himself secures. �Note. It is a rule, founded both upon common sense and authority, that whenever two persons stand in such a relation that, while it continues, confi- dence is necessarily reposed by one in the other, and the influence whieh nat- urally grows eut of that confidence is possessed by the other, and this confidence is abused, or the influence is exerted to obtain an advantage at the expense of the conflding party, the person so availing himself of his position will not be permitted to retain the advantage, although the transaction could not have been irapeached if no such confldential relation had existed. Evans, Agency, *256, 290; 1 Story, Eq. Jur. § 218, 309, et seq.; Tate v. Williamson, L. E. 2 Ch. 61; Qillenwaters v. Miller, 49 Miss. 150. "Where a known and deflned fiduciary relation exists, the conduct of the party benefited must be such as to sever the connection and to place him in the same eircumstances in which a mere stranger would have stood, giving him no advantage, save only whatevei ��� �