client may be to recognize and affirm it, the act cannot be ratified, and the stranger may avail himself of a defense of which he could not have taken advantage had the purchase orignally been made by the client, and the attorney honestly succeeded to his interest. Of course, this argument assumes that the client owes no duty to the stranger in respect to the subsequently acquired interest. In the case at bar he did owe such duty, and it is on that ground that I agree with the opinion of the court that plaintiff could insist upon the invalidity of the purchase by the attorney of the Hadleys, assuming that he was then acting as attorney for them. But in the Cunningham Case no such obligation existed. The theory on which the plaintiff here can insist upon the invalidity of the attorney's title is not that the deed was void, but was, in legal contemplation, a purchase by the Hadleys themselves. Having the right to claim that the purchase should inure to their benefit, they were bound to avail themselves of such right under the covenant in their mortgage, and under their duty to plaintiff as mortgagors, irrespective of such a covenant, to pay the taxes upon the land. They could not waive this right, for they held it only as trustees for the plaintiff; who was the sole beneficiary. If, where the client owes no duty to the one who seeks to destroy the attorney's title, the attorney, with the free assent of the client, cannot buy an interest adverse to both parties, then the stranger would enjoy an advantage where the attorney should purchase which he would not enjoy in case the client, his antagonist, should buy. Assume that there is no duty resting upon either party to a litigation touching the title to real estate to pay taxes thereon, so far as the other parties is concerned. In such a case the defendant might purchase the land on tax-sale, and his inchoate right might, by lapse of time and the execution of a deed, ripen into a perfect title. Should he be unsuccessful in his defense, he nevertheless might stand impregnably upon his new title, under the tax-deed, in any future proceeding. It would not be void. Securing such title would involve no breach of duty to his antagonist. But should his attorney purchase on such tax-sale, then, if the purchase is void, no prior assent to, no subsequent ratification by, the
