79 Mo. App. 46 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1899
Plaintiffs are judgment creditors of C.C. Christie and had an execution levied upon a certificate for two hundred and forty-nine shares of stock in a “commission company,” an institution engaged in what is commonly known as a “bucket shop” business in Kansas City. The stock levied on may be said for the purposes of this case to be a reinvestment of profits made in a similar institution theretofore existing, known as the W. A. Michael Commission Company. Edna O. Christie, who is the wife of C. O. Christie, the judgment debtor, made claim to the stock as her individual and separate property. On a trial of the issue thus tendered the trial court found for her and plaintiff appealed.
This was in part payment for his services. He testified that “the salary was an agreement of this kind: That I should ■draw enough money to pay my grocery bill and house rent and take the management of this office, and if the business grew, that some time in the future he would give me an interest in it, or something to that effect. There was no written agreement between us.” "When shown a letter written by him to Michael in which he refers to having read over the agreement between them, he said: “I meant we had an understanding and a memorandum, perhaps, in regard to the profits from time to time, which that letter tries to explain. We had no written contract, that I have any recollection of that bound Mr. Michael to anything.” He further said that the agreement referred to in the letter was “a little memorandum; some little paper that he and I had made together, perhaps. If there was a written contract between Mr. Michael and me, I have no recollection of it.” Other letters, together with his testimony, demonstrate conclusively that he did have an agreement with Michael whereby he had, or was to have, an interest in the concern which he says was afterwards given to his wife. In his letter of June 16, 1896, referring to accounts between them and of a contract “with me,” he says that an item of $60 expenses in organizing the W. A. Michael Commission Company should be paid by Michael. When it is remembered that this was the company organized, as claimed, for the purpose of being given to Mrs. Christie and that it was a gift of a ■ business with an earning capacity of $10,000 a month, as he himself stated,
2. Rut even if the evidence was not as comprehensive as stated, there is another ground which fixes a right in these judgment creditors of Christie to-subject a large part, at least, of the earnings of the stock or business, to the payment of their-claim. Though, as the proceeding which plaintiff has instituted will, if carried out, result in a sale, of the stock
Yet while this is true, it must be remembered that a debtor can not make a gift of property to the hindrance of his creditors. The only difference between a debtor husband making a gift to his wife and to any other person, is that he owes her the duty of support of her and their family. Beyond that he can no more give to her, as against creditors, than he could to a stranger. To hold otherwise would be to overturn the law as to voluntary settlements by insolvent debtors. The
It ought, however, to be distinctly understood that it does not follow because the business is done with the wife’s property, or on her capital and in her name, that it is necessarily her business. Such transaction between husband and wife, on account of the ease with which imposition and fraud upon creditors may be practiced, should be closely scrutinized.
It is therefore necessary to ascertain from the evidence whether, though Christie was operating with his wife’s stock given her by Michael, he was conducting the business for her, or for himself. We are of the opinion that, manifestly, the latter is the condition developed by the evidence. In the first place Mrs. C. knew nothing about the business and had nothing to do with it. She never gave any direction about it and never took any interest in it, and, as is conceded, she did not have a dollar invested in the business. The very large profits which were made never came to her in the shape of dividends. He used a portion of the profits to pay his individual debts. Christie kept everything himself, though professedly as her agent, and the whole profitable result was not the result of an investment of her capital, but the result of his labor and knowledge of the peculiar business in which he was engaged.
In Lachman v. Martin, 139 Ill. 450, we find a case in some respects like .the one at bar. It involved a similar sort of business run by a husband ostensibly as his wife’s agent. The wife there, like the wife here, had no investment, in the business and knew nothing about it, or its management. There she went through the pretense of borrowing $500, which her husband was to use, but it was paid out of the business. There the husband, as in this case, was the manager and absolute controller of the interest pretended to be in his wife. The court among other things, said that, “the profits
With the concurrence of the other judges the judgment will be reversed.