74 Vt. 120 | Vt. | 1902
The defendant, Chester Brown, finding himself at the age of eighty-one years, alone in the world and in need of some one to keep his house and take care of him, told the defendant Betsey, a maiden lady of sixty-two' years, that if she would be his wife he would give her everything he had, including his home place worth about $1,200; that there was a mortgage on it for $225, and that that was all he owed. All of which was strictly true, except that he owed the orator, a lawyer, for services in a chancery suit then on the docket, some $38, and that the orator was surety for costs in his behalf in the same case. So she took him at his word, and they were married. Some months later the orator sent him his bill; and in a few days Chester deeded the place to Betsey, and turned over to her every dollar of his personal property, just as he had promised. Then when the orator, meeting him, asked him for his pay, he told him he didn’t know as he owed
The orator objected to- all parol testimony tending to show an ante-nuptial agreement as ruled out by the statute of frauds, and the facts were found solely upon such oral testimony. His position here is that, the promise Chester made to Betsey before marriage being one that she could not have enforced by reason of the statute, his conveyance to* her after marriage, made in pursuance of that promise, was a purely voluntary conveyance (Lloyd v. Fulton, 1 Otto 479, 23 L. Ed. 363; Chancellor Kent’s opinion in Reade v. Livingston, 3 Johns. Ch. 481, 8 Am. Dec. 520; Carter v. Smith, 82 Ala. 334, 60 Am. R. 738, 740; Deihon v. Wood, 148 Mass. 132, 1 L. R. A. 518, and note; and numerous cases stated in Am. Digest, Century Ed. Vol. 23, columns 1839-1845), and being ^
He objected to all evidence tending to impeach his judgment, and filed exceptions to the report on the ground of such admission; but in this court he has made no objection of that sort, and we treat the case, as he has in his brief, upon the facts found by the master. It comes to this: that, even if he had a right to raise his ad damnum in the circumstances, he had no right to take judgment for the costs in the chancery suit, which he had never paid; and a court of equity will not aid him in enforcing such a judgment.
Neither can this court correct that judgment at his request in this proceeding. If that could be done at all, this bill is not brought for such a purpose, but to perfect a lien under the existing judgment, and it is too late for him thus to retrace his steps.
Decree affirmed and cause remanded.