59 Ga. 136 | Ga. | 1877
Lead Opinion
This was a claim case, on the trial of which the jury, under the charge of the court, found the land not subject to the fi.fa. levied thereon. The plantiff in fi-fa. made a motion for a new trial, on the grounds therein stated, which was overruled, and the plaintiff excepted. The land in controversy was levied on as the property of W. W. Hughes, who had made a parol gift of it to his son, George W. Hughes, and was claimed by Clark, his administrator, he being dead. The facts as disclosed by the evidence in the record were substantially as follows:
The debt was created April 1, 1859, and judgment rendered February 26, 1867. Levy was made August 18, 1873, and claim filed September 30, 1873, by the administrator of George W. Hughes, who was in possession.
It was admitted that W. W. Hughes owned the land until the spring of 1865, but the time of the parol gift, whether then or in 1866, was disputed. He never executed a deed to it, and filed a petition for homestead June 11, 1869, in which the land levied on is set out as his property. He died June 28, 1872.
In July, 1872, a trunk of papers was intrusted by the widow of W. ~W. Hughes to George ~W. Hughes to examine fo'r her, which he never returned. This contained the title to the land levied on.
The plaintiff requested the court to charge the jury in writing “that the rendition of a judgment against the donor, before the expiration of seven years from the date of the parol gift of the land, gave the creditor a lien thereon which was not defeated by mere possession of seven years,” which request to charge the court refused, and that is the main ground of error complained of here.
The claimant, then, was the owner of the land upon that assumed theory, (which is most favorable for him) about one year and six months before the plaintiff’s fi. fa. was levied on it. Before and at the time the claimant became the owner of the land in this view of the case, the plaintiff’s judgment was a lien upon it. "Wiry should it not be sold to satisfy that judgment lien? Is the-claimant in this case, as the owner of the land under the proven parol gift, (assuming that he is such owner under the provisions of the 2664th section of the Code) in any better condition than a bona fide purchaser of the land for a valuable consideration would have been ? A bona fide purchaser of the land for a valuable consideration would not have been protected against the plaintiff’s judgment lien until after the expiration of four years from the date of his purchase and possession, and shall a voluntary donee of land under a. parol gift, (assuming that he became the owner thereof in the spring of 1872), have any better protection against a judgment lien on the land thus acquired, than a bona fide purchaser for a valuable consideration? A more serious inquiry would be, to find out under what statute the owner óf land under a voluntary gift thereof, upon which there was a judgment lien at the time he became such owner, could be protected at all as against such judgment lien. In view of the facts disclosed in the record, the court erred in overruling the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial. Let the judgment of the court below be reversed. ’
Concurrence Opinion
concurring.
If the son held the land seven years during the life-time of the father, the son’s title was good against a judgment obtained, pending the possession of the son, though the son did not hold possession seven years after the judgment. As the fact is in dispute, and not certain, that the father lived seven years after the son went into possession, it is well to try the case over, and in that view alone I concur in the judgment on the authority of 48 Ga., 332.
If it shall be made to appear that the son held possession seven years in the life-time of the father, adversely to the father, then the presumption is conclusive that the father, seven years before, made the son a valid, legal gift to the land by deed properly made, attested and delivered; and if such a deed, actually made and delivered, would have passed title out of the father to the son before the judgment, then the presumption being conclusive from seven years possession in the life-time of the father, without interruption, that such a deed was made seven years before, that deed, so presumed to have been made seven years before, also passed title out of the father at the date when, by presumption, it was made. Hence title would be in the son, and not in the father, when the judgment was obtained. See Code, §2664.