Murphy v. Union Trust Co.

The respondent, Union Trust Company, a corporation, as trustee upon certain trusts declared in the last will and testament, and a codicil thereto, of Andrew J. Pope, who died in the city of San Francisco about the eighteenth day of December, 1878, acquired and became seised in fee of certain real property situated in said city and county of San Francisco. In the month of September or October, 1902 (it is not clear which), Rudolph Spreekels, intervener and appellant, and I. W. Heilman, Jr., the secretary and cashier of the defendant corporation, had a conversation relative to said real property, and in which Mr. Spreekels made an offer to Mr. Heilman to buy said property for the sum of $226,000. After some discussion by the parties of the proposition, Mr. Heilman, according to his own testimony, said to Mr. Spreekels: “I will tell you how we can arrange this; we will go into court, make the statement that we are offered $226,000, and ask the court to confirm it, and then, if there are any other parties that wish to raise the bid they can come forward and do so.” There is little, if any, variance between Mr. Spreekels and Mr. Heilman as to the purport of the conversation to which we…