86 Va. 26 | Va. | 1889
delivered the opinion of the court.
The record discloses that, in August, 1885, Peter Moore lived in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, and resided in a house on the corner of Cumberland and Washington streets, numbered 30 Cumberland street. The complainants were wholesale liquor merchants, residing and doing business in the city of Richmond, Va., and in the city of Baltimore, Md.
In the latter part of July and the first part of August of that year, Peter Moore addressed letters to the complainants and others, wholesale liquor merchants, stating that he was about to go into business, and making inquiries as to prices of liquors. In the latter part of July, 1885, or on the first day of August, 1885, a salesman representing the firm of E. B. Bruce & Co., in response to the letters of the said Peter Moore, visited Peter Moore at his residence, No. 30 Cumberland street, Norfolk, at which interview Peter Moore stated that he was about to go into business; that he owned the house No. 30 Cumberland street, in which he lived, and which he valued at $5,000 00 ; that he wished to buy, on four months time, from E. B. Bruce & Co. to the extent of ten per cent, on the value of the house, and that he would buy from no other house. An order for $490 00 worth of goods was filled out, and a duplicate léft with Peter Moore. On the 14th of August, T885, the said salesman returned and visited Peter Moore at his residence, No. 30 Cumberland street, and went with him to his store, at
We are of opinion, that the proffer in evidence of this defaced, erased, and unexplained check, which was not mentioned or referred to at the time that the deed was made, is insufficient to establish a valuable consideration for the deed. The deed was made August 17th, 1885, and was instantly handed back to the grantor, Peter Moore, who locked it up in his iron safe and kept it there until he put it to record, on the 10th day of March, 1886. The deed was not only a voluntary unrecorded deed up to that date, but the facts in evidence are such as to convince the mind, without doubt, that the deed was actually fraudulent, and was made as a trick or contrivance to elude the lawful pursuit of his creditors, and, indeed, that he began and continued business with the deliberate purpose of obtaining credit upon the house Ho. 30 Cumberland
Peter Moore having contracted a debt on the faith of his ownership of the house, he immediately thereafter executed the deed of August 17th, 1885, to his daughter for the house, who leaves it in his custody and concealment unrecorded, and he continued to buy goods on the faith of his title of record, to which he appealed, and referred his creditors for assurance of his asserted title and ownership of the house. He continued to occupy the house after the execution of the deed just as before, and to pay the taxes upon it as his own property. Even if the daughter acted innocently of her father’s fraudulent intent, yet she made Peter Moore the custodian of her secret title deed, and enabled him, by concealing it, to obtain credit on the faith of his asserted and recorded ownership of the property, and she must be held to constructive notice of his fraudulent intent and scheme; and if one of two innocent parties must suffer by the fraud of the grantor, she, the grantee, who put it in the power of the grantor to commit the injury, must bear the consequence. Story on Agency, sec. 56, 264; Royal British Bank v. Tarquand, 85 E. C. L., 248; Batchelder v. White, 80 Va., 103, and eases there cited; Pomeroy, treating of notice and its effect, sec. 687; Briggs v. Jones, L. R. 10, Eq. 92.
By the terms and the intendment of section 5, chapter 114, Code of 1873, an unrecorded deed speaks only from the date of its recordation, and is void as against creditors for value and without notice “ until and except from the time that it is duly, admitted to record.” The deed of August 17th, 1885, being a voluntary and unrecorded deed, had no existence until the 10th of March, 1886, as against bona fide creditors, although it were untainted with fraud, and good between the grantor
The deed of August 17th, 1885, is a fraudulent deed, and it must he vacated and set aside as having been made by Peter Moore with the intent to hinder, delay, and defraud the appellants, his bona fide creditors.
• The decree appealed from is wholly erroneous, and must he reversed and annulled, and the cause remanded to the corporation court of Norfolk for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
Decree reversed.