82 Wash. 271 | Wash. | 1914
The appellant and respondent were formerly husband and wife. They intermarried in Douglas county, Washington, on September 16, 1905. At that time, the appellant owned one hundred and sixty acres of land which he had theretofore acquired under the homestead laws of the
On July 12, 1913, the respondent began the present action against the appellant to set aside the conveyances made by her purporting to convey to the appellant her community interest in the Tacoma property, basing her cause of action upon want of consideration and fraud and deceit on the part of the appellant. Issue was taken on the complaint, and a trial had, which resulted in a decree cancelling the conveyances. From the decree, this appeal is prosecuted.
Again, we think the evidence justifies the conclusion that the respondent did not fully understand the effect of the instruments executed. They were executed at a meeting of the parties held in the office of the appellant’s attorney, at which the respondent had no representative or legal adviser. The meeting was brought about by a person employed by the appellant for that purpose, and was held just after the respondent had returned from a private sanitarium. The ostensible purpose of procuring the meeting was to effect a reconciliation between the appellant and respondent and induce her to live with him again as his wife, and at the meeting this proposition was made to respondent by the appellant. On her refusal to again live with the appellant, a settlement was proposed, and the deeds and contract were then executed. But we cannot believe that the effort at reconciliation was made in good faith. If the appellant’s witnesses are to be believed, he then knew that the respondent had not conducted herself with propriety since their separation — that she had been “consorting” with Greek men, and that “Greeks were running to her room.” Again he testifies that he figured he could not get ahead by being married; that he wanted deeds so he could handle the property, so he could do something, and not “set
But we shall not pursue the inquiry. The law is well settled that the burden is upon the husband to show that a tranfer made to him by his wife for an inadequate consideration was made freely and that the transaction was fair and just. There is no such showing in the present case, and the judgment will stand affirmed.