183 Ga. 320 | Ga. | 1936
In this case there was a trial by a jury, and at the conclusion of the evidence the court directed a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff made a motion for new trial, and in one of the grounds properly assigned error on the direction of the verdict, for the reason that there were issues of fact which should have been submitted to a jury. The exception is to the denial of the motion for new trial. The controlling question in the case is whether the court, under the evidence adduced, was authorized to direct the verdict. Effie E. Williams died on February 16, 1928. The plaintiff is her administrator. In October, 1931, M. W. Walker advertised to sell described land on the first Tuesday in November, 1931, under a power of sale contained in a deed from Effie E. Williams to M. W. Walker, to secure an alleged loan of $1500. The action now 'before us was brought to enjoin this sale and to cancel the deed, on the ground that the
Williams testified that he applied to Walker for a loan for himself; that Walker asked him what collateral he had, and he told Walker that he did not have anything, but that his wife had a good farm, and he thought he could get her to sign the paper for that; that Walker said, if the wife had the collateral and would sign it, he would let Williams have the money; that the witness told
It is true that there was no evidence of a pre-existing debt of the husband to the lender. There was evidence that a check for the $1500 was made out in the name of the wife, and that her indorsement was necessary to enable her to take physical temporary possession of the proceeds of the loan. It is true also that the lender was not at Baxley, and perhaps not even in Appling County, at the time the check was delivered to her by an attorney at law. But the fact that the transaction was finally closed, and the check —the symbol of the money loaned — was finally delivered by an intermediary, might of itself be a circumstance in support of the evidence for the plaintiff that the transaction was the result of a conspiracy and a collusion between the husband and the lender. The mere fact that the wife executes a conveyance of her property, and a check for the proceeds of a loan is issued to her, does not as a matter of law create a debt of the wife and not of the husband. Nor does it raise a conclusive presumption to that effect. The rule is well settled in this State that a wife may borrow money and give it to her husband to pay his debts; and that the purpose for which she intends to use her money may be immaterial, even though the lender knows the purpose for which she is borrowing the money, and is not himself a creditor of the husband. But if the lender is a party to a scheme between the husband and the wife, for which the borrowing of the money for such purpose is the outcome, the transaction is futile and invalid. In this case there was testimony that when the lender went to the home of the husband
In this case, evidence in behalf of the plaintiff indicates that the wife did not in any way participate in procuring or soliciting this loan to be made; that the husband alone approached the lender, not on behalf of his wife, but for himself; that the sole connection of the wife with the transaction was to sign a deed to her land to secure a debt, at the solicitation and encouragement of her husband and the lender. As to this it was said, in Freeman v. Mutual Building & Loan Association, 90 Ga. 190 (15 S. E. 758): “When
Judgment reversed.