9 Gratt. 568 | Va. | 1853
delivered the opinion of the court.
The court is of the opinion that the deed in the bill mentioned of the 8th of February 1840, between the appellees John C. Patterson and his two daughters Mary L. and Cicily M., was fraudulent and void as to creditors. The deed purports to be made “ in consideration of the sum .of one dollar, but more especially by virtue of the love and affection that he (the grantor) has for his said two daughters;” and was executed at a time when according to the proofs in the cause the grantor was greatly embarrassed and indebted, most probably to the extent of the value of his whole estate. And the effort to found the deed on a valid exchange of slaves for land has wholly failed; the evidence tending to prove a parol gift by the said John C. Patterson to his said two daughters, in 1837 or 1838, of certain slaves, which, in the joint answers of Rice and wife, Lowry and wife and bfelson A. Patterson, it is averred were exchanged for the land conveyed by the deed aforesaid, falling short of proving any such possession of the slaves by the said daughters as would confer on them a valid title thereto; and it also appearing that at the date of said alleged gift the said John C. Patterson was so indebted as to render any gift by him of his property, however complete in form, void as to his creditors.
The court is also of opinion that the intermarriages between the appellees MaryL. and Thomas R. Rice, and Cicily M. and Richard Lowry, since the execution of the deed aforesaid, do not, under the circumstances in this case, stand in the way of the appellant’s right to subject the land in said deed embraced, to the satisfaction of his demand. For whatever might have been the effect of such intermarriages on the rights of the parties, if they had been relied on and shown to have occurred before the date of the judgment, to the lien of which the-appellant seeks to subject said land, they could have presented no impediment to the assertion