3 Wyo. 211 | Wyo. | 1889
The defendant and appellee Jeremiah Graham, on the 24th day of October, 1883, held the legal title to a house and lot in the city of Cheyenne, which he had acquired about nine years previously by a deed of conveyance from Posey Wilson. In the year 1877, while thus holding the legal title, he became indebted upon an accepted bill of exchange to Appelgate & Sons, of Louisville, Ky., and by promissory note to Jacob P. Weybrecht. The holders of these negotiable instruments subsequently, but at a date which is not disclosed by the record, indorsed and delivered them to the appellants, who on the 10th day of January, 1884, instituted this action in the district court for the recovery of the amount due them, and contemporaneously therewith obtained an attachment, which was levied upon the property mentioned, and which is now the subject of this controversy. In this action personal judgment was rendered against Graham, the ground of attachment sustained, and the sheriff was,directed to sell the property for the satisfaction of the judgment and costs. Acting under this judgment, and by virtue of a special execution, the sheriff, proceeding regularly, sold the property, and appellants, being the accepted bidders, became the purchasers. The sale was confirmed by the court, a deed was ordered and made, conveying all the right and interest which Graham had in the property at the date of the attachment levy. When the property was offered by the sheriff at public vendue, Hannah Graham, wife of Jeremiah, appeared, and forbade the sale, claiming for herself the sole and exclusive ownership of the property. Being jointly with her husband in possession, she refused to surrender to the purchasers, who it appears did not apply on the confirmation of their deed, as they might have done, for the writ of habere facias or other appropriate execution to put them into the possession of the property which the court by its officer had sold to them, but sought their remedy by a bill in chancery, assailing the alleged title and ownership of the wife, and praying that she and her husband be adjudged to surrender possession to them.
The appellants claiming the legal estate and, the right of entry, it would seem that for them the action of ejectment was the more appropriate- remedy; but since the ap-pellees appeared in the court below, and without objection to the form of procedure filed their answer controverting the material allegations of the bill, inquiry upon this feature becomes unimportant. It is alleged in the bill that at the time of the acceptance by Jeremiah of the bill of exchange, and at the time of the execution by him of the promissory note, he was the owner and in the possession of the house and lot; that on the 24th day of October, 1883, the debt still being unpaid, he and his wife, Hannah, without consideration, and with the fraudulent intent to hinder and defraud the husband’s creditors, conveyed the property to A. S. Emery, and on the following day Emery, with intent to aid in the execution of the fraudulent design, conveyed the property to the wife. The Grahams filed their joint answer, denying the fraud, averring the bona fldes of the transaction, and, in addition, in a rather vague way, affirmatively declaring the sole and exclusive ownership by the wife of the property, not only at the date of the attachment levy, but for a long time prior thereto. The testimony upon the issue they framed took a wide range. Much of it was conflicting, a part of it irrelevant, and á portion incredible from its intrinsic improbability. • The pleadings, strictly construed, would leave but one issue for determination,- — the question of fraudulent intent in the conveyances to and from Emery; but inasmuch as the cause appears to have been prepared with reference to the rather indefinite allegation by the wife of exclusive ownership in herself, even prior to the conveyance to her by Emery, this question will be considered equally with the other.
There can be no pretense that the legal title was ever vested in the wife prior to the 25th day of October, 1883, — the date of the Emery deed. The utmost right that can be claimed for her antecedently arises out of the doctrine of resulting trusts. It is claimed by both herself and husband that she furnished tiie money to pay for the property in contest when it was bought from Wilson about the year 1874, and that the deed, through their ignorance of the law, was made to the husband. It is an accepted rule of equity jurisprudence that when property is purchased in the name of one party, and the purchase price is actually paid at the time by another, a
Guided, therefore, by those general principles which have become fundamental in our system of equity, it becomes necessary to closely examine the testimony by which the appellees undertake to establish the trust in favor of the wife. As shown by the evidence, they are both negroes. While this fact neither enlarges nor diminishes their rights under the law, it is not improper that a court of conscience should consider the circumstances of their birth, their meager opportunities for education, their unfavorable environment during a portion of their lives, the ungracious dispensations to which they were long subjected, and to soften, in their favor, as far as may be done without a violation of duty, the rigor of the general rules of law. To extend, however, this spirit of kindly consideration to the point where sentiment shall take the place of law would be not only wrong in itself, but might, as a precedent, prove disastrous in the end to the race of which appellees are representatives.
It seems to be a capital point in the testimony of each of them to establish the character, of the wife as a female of unusual thrift, industry, business tact, and acquisitiveness, who, during the entire period of their marital life, has been the financial guide and manager of the majority of their business adventures, while it is agreed by them, with the most interesting, though rather suspicious, harmony, that the husband, by exercising a poor judgment, not only lost a very considerable personal estate of which the wife was possessed at the time of their marriage, but that his subsequent enterprises were fruitless of good, results, and that for years he has been handicapped by general thriftlessness, a want of shrewdness, enterprise, and sagacity. Judged, however, in thé light of what the husband is proven to have accomplished, the delineation is overdrawn. He himself, in the account given of his life, proves that in the year 1853, and when quite a lad, living with his master near Nashville, Tenn., he had the nerve to make a break for his freedom, the sagacity to thread his way through Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Northern states, evading the officers of the law, and finally, in spite of the fugitive slave law, to reach Canada'in safety. There he remained until 1858; .then moved to the state of Michigan, thence to Pennsylvania, where in 1862 he married his wife. This feature of personal history is utterly inconsistent with the character for shiftlessness and lack of enterprise he is so willing to ascribe to himself, and as to which, at least outside the domestic circle, he is in such happy accord with his wife, though differing widely on other matters. The testimony is that, when he married, his wife had $3,300 in money, which he obtained from her at different times, and which he lost in unlucky investments at Oil
In the year 1868 Graham and wife came to the territory of Wyoming. Arriving here, they found that the fetters of the common law had been broken by statutory enactment. A married woman was entitled, to the exclusion of her husband, to all the property she could earn by industry, or which she might acquire by deed, devise, descent, or distribution. Here, according to their concurring narrative, every labor of the wifeV hands received a rich remuneration. Beginning penniless, by her skill as a laundress, though paying 75 cents per barrel for water and the same price per pound for soap, in a country where, and at a time when, the costs of living were more exorbitant than the price of water, she soon acquired lands, houses, wagons, teams, mules, cattle, and other personal property, and besides gave to her husband $50 every month for three years to maintain him in the habits of a gentleman, either in seasons of idleness or misadventure. Meanwhile, however, the husband was occasionally moved by sporadic freaks of industry, and worked with a rigiit good will at hauling wood, chopping, well-digging, and other like employments. It sufficiently appears that, after a lapse of a few years, wagons and teams had been acquired either by their separate or by their joint industry. In 1873-74 the husband was engaged in a contract to haul wood to Ft. Laramie. While thus engaged he testifies that his wife furnished him with $600, with which he bought seven yoke of oxen. These, added to several teams he already had, increased his opportunity for a profitable prosecution of his Ft. Laramie contract. In 1874 he left this place, and went to Cheyenne, having at the time either nine head or nine yoke of oxen, and it is impossible from the transcript to tell which, as the witness has used the word “head” and the word “yoke” interchangeably. At any rate he arrived in Cheyenne with only a remnant of his cattle. A part had been stolen by the Indians, on which point it is to be noted that the claim filed by him with the United States government for the value of the stolen stock was in his own name as the owner of the stock, and not in his wife’s name as the owner. He further testifies that of the remnant of the stock he exchanged a portion with Wilson for a deed to the property in controversy. Thus it appears that the utmost which can be claimed for the wife is that she loaned her'husband money to buy oxen, that he bought the oxen, and, so far as anything to the contrary is shown, took the title to himself, and subsequently exchanged them for Cheyenne property. To hold that a trust in favor of the wife would result from this transaction would commit the court to the duty of finding a trust in favor of every other creditor of her husband.
Upon this branch of the ease the testimony of the wife is radically different from that of her husband. On page 49 of the record she says, in answer to the question “Who'purchased that property?” “I gave Mr. Graham money to purchase the property. Question 16. How much did you give him? Answer. Four hundred dollars.” On pages 61, 62, under cross-examination, she gives the following account of the transaction of purchase, which it will readily be observed is utterly unlike her first version. “Question 142. During the time Mr. Graham and yourself lived at Laramie, what was Mr. Graham’s business? Answer. Teaming. Q. 143. Was he teaming with his own teams? A. He had but one team the first winter. Q. 144. How many teams did he have the other winters and summers? A. Two mule teams and one horse team. Q. 145. What became of that property? A. Indians stole the mule team. Q. 146. When ? A. In 1872. Q. 147. What became of the other teams? A. After lie brought them
But, even on the assumption that the testimony removed all reasonable doubt of her payment of the consideration, we do not perceive how the trust could avail her in this action. Married women, with all the disabilities of coverture which are imposed by the common law, may, under divers circumstances, be estopped from asserting their rights either of property, of control, or of remedy, although such rights may primarily have clearly existed. To borrow the familiar phrase, her coverture was intended to he used as a shield, never as a sword. For much stronger reason may the doctrine of estoppel be applied within those jurisdictions where their property is freed from the control of their husbands, and they, by legislation, have been made persons sui juris.
In the ease at bar the legal title to the property in contest was, by the knowledge and consent of the wife, vested in the husband in the year 1874. The evidence of this was before the public. • He occupied it, and publicly carried on business in it in his own name. He listed it for taxation as his property. He pai d taxes on it as his property, borrowing money from his wife for this purpose, and subjecting himself to her complaint that he did not pay the money back. He publicly spoke of it as his property. He executed m ortgages on it as his property. He redeemed it from the incumbrance of the mortgage as his property. He borrowed money and created debts on the representation and general belief that it was his property. This conduct ran through a period of nine years. During the whole time his wife lived with him under the same roof, and must have been cognizant of these facts. Indeed, she has in her testimony, already referred to, spoken, if not boastfully, at least confidently, of her business sagacity, and the general supervision which she exercised over the affairs of her husband. Having thus,.for so long a time, made a pillow of her rights, she cannot now erect them into a pillar of testimony against her husband’s creditors.
In Besson v. Eveland, 26 N. J. Eq. 472, the court, in speaking of the claim advanced by the wife, that the property attached by her husband’s creditors was originally purchased with her money, says: “Claims of this kind should always be regarded with a watchful suspicion, and when attempted to be asserted against creditors upon the evidence of the parties themselves, uncorroborated by other proof, they should be rejected at once, unless their statements are so full, clear, and convincing as to make the justice and fairness of the claim manifest. Any other course will encourage fraud, and multiply the hazards of most business ventures.” In Moyer v. Adams, 9 Biss. 394,
The remaining question on which the solution of this controversy depends is, were the deeds from Graham and wife to Emery, and from Emery to the wife, executed in pursuance of a fraudulent purpose to defeat the creditors of the husband? This intent is to be ascertained, not so much by what the parties say, as by the facts and circumstances attending the conveyances. When persons are consciously guilty of an unlawful design, it is not to be presumed that they will voluntarily confess it before the courts. And so, even if all three of these parties did in fact conceive and execute a purpose to thwart the creditors of Jeremiah Graham, it may be reasonably anticipated that they would, as they have done, with much emphasis deny it. We are, however constrained to the conclusion that the whole of their testimony upon this point convicts them of this purpose. An extended review of their evidence, showing its improbabilities and contradictions, would
Wherefore the judgment of the district court is reversed, and the cause is remanded, with directions to set aside the decree of July 27, 1887, and to enter a judgment declaring void the Graham and Emery deeds, and by appropriate order to compel the surrender of the property to the plaintiffs. ■
2 Fed. Rep. 182.