43 N.J. Eq. 47 | New York Court of Chancery | 1887
This suit is brought to enforce an express trust. Prior to April 2d, 1879, the complainant was the owner of a lot of land in Morristown. On that day he conveyed it to his son John, who, on the same day, conveyed it to the complainant’s wife. Both deeds were voluntary. The complainant’s wife continued to hold the title until November 26th, 1883, when she and complainant conveyed it to their daughter Celia, the defendant in this suit. Celia, on the same day, and as part of the transaction by which she became invested with title, made a deed to the complainant. The object of the two last conveyances was to change the title from the wife to the husband. No consideration was paid for either. Celia, at the time of this transaction, was a minor, being only nineteen years of age. Her 'deed, therefore, while not void, was voidable. No acts in confirmation of her deed, performed since she attained fall age, are either alleged or proved. Since attaining full age, she has refused to execute a deed in confirmation of the one she made while a minor, but now insists that that deed, by reason of her minority, is of no effect, and that the title to the land still remains in her, and that she is under no duty to convey it to the complainant. The complainant, on the contrary, insists that the defendant took title subject to a trust, the trust being that she should convey the land to him, and having thus far failed to execute it effectually, and now refusing to do so, the .court should compel her to execute it.
There can be no doubt about the fact. The circumstances attending the transfer of the title to the defendant render it conspicuously clear that the purpose of all persons concerned in the transaction was to change the title from the wife to-the husband.
The only written evidence or manifestation of the trust which the complainant has offered in this case is that which is contained in the pleadings. The bill alleges, that the land in question was conveyed by the complainant and his wife to the defendant, for the sole purpose and with the express understanding that the defendant should, immediately after acquiring title, convey it to the complainant. The defendant was required to answer under oath, and has done so. By her answer she says, that she has no reason to doubt the truth of the above allegation of the bill. Does this constitute such evidence of the trust as to render it proper for the court to decree its execution ? The proof of the trust, in my judgment, is complete. The declaration is in writing; it is signed by the trustee; it was made after she became competent to declare a trust • it is verified by her oath, and its terms are plainly stated. The principle is settled, that an answer to a bill in equity may be sufficient, as a declaration of a trust, to justify the court in decreeing its execution. Chancellor Vroom, in Hutchinson v. Tindall, 2 Gr. Ch. 357, held, that, where a complainant files a bill, alleging that a deed
This being so, the complainant now stands invested with a full and complete estate in equity in the land in question. The land in equity belongs to the complainant, and the defendant simply holds the dry, naked, legal title in trust for the complainant. In this condition of affairs the defendant cannot defeat the complainant’s right to a conveyance by showing that the land was conveyed to her -or to her grantor in fraud of creditors. Ownes v. Ownes, 8 C. E. Gr. 60, is decisive against the validity of such a defence. Chancellor Zabriskie in that case said: “ I know of no case in which a court of equity has refused to enforce a trust, actually declared and vested, on account of fraud in the conveyance to the trustee who declared the trust.” The fraud here charged is against the conveyance by which title was put in the wife. The defendant says, that the complainant put the title to the land in controversy in his wife to defraud his creditors. The proof in support of this charge is
The complainant is entitled to a decree.