Catchings v. Harcrow

• Citation: 3 S.W. 884
• Parties: CATCHINGS and others <I>v.</I> HARCROW and others.
• Decision Date: 02 April 1887
• Court: Supreme Court of Arkansas

3 S.W. 884

CATCHINGS and others

v. HARCROW and others.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

April 2, 1887.

Appeal from circuit court, Drew county.

McCain & Crawford, for appellants.

SMITH, J.

J. C. Harcrow opened a mercantile business in the town of Monticello in the spring of 1880. In August and the fall of the same year he bought goods in Memphis, Louisville, and St. Louis, to the amount of several thousand dollars, upon a credit. These goods he sold for cash, chiefly in large lots, to other merchants in the same town, and at prices corresponding to the original cost. He paid no debts, and in January, 1881, when he had sold out his stock, had no property in sight, having shortly before sold and conveyed his iron safe, and the house and lot in which he carried on business, to his brother Elbert for an alleged debt due him. Catchings & Co., one of his creditors, sued J. C. Harcrow before a justice of the peace, and swore out an attachment, which was levied upon the safe, and also upon the house and lot. The attachment was sustained, and the attached property was condemned to be sold. Elbert brought an action of replevin against the purchasers of the safe, but after a contest before the justice, which was fought over again in the circuit court, he was finally defeated. The proceeds of the sale of the safe being insufficient to satisfy their debt, Catchings & Co. filed a transcript of their judgment in the office of the clerk of the circuit court, and, upon execution issued thereon, purchased the real estate which had been attached for the residue of their debt, $180.30. This sale was made for cash, contrary to the statute; and, the same not being redeemed from within the time prescribed by law, the sheriff conveyed the premises to them by deed. Entertaining some doubt as to the validity of the sale, and no one being in actual possession, Catchings & Co. now exhibited their bill, assailing the previous conveyance to Elbert Harcrow as a fraudulent contrivance to defeat the creditors of J. C. Harcrow, and alleging that the demand, in satisfaction of which it purported to have been made, was simulated. The two brothers filed a joint answer, claiming that the debt of J. C. to Elbert was just and honest, and that the whole transaction amounted only to a preference of one creditor over another. Proofs were taken, and at the hearing the bill was dismissed.

It is suggested in the brief for appellants that the ground of dismissal was the supposed unconstitutionality of the act of January 23, 1875, allowing attachments issued by a justice of the peace to be levied upon lands. Mansf. Dig. § 4125 et seq. But this question was set at rest in Bush v. Visant, 40 Ark. 124. However, the decree will not be disturbed if it can be sustained on any ground. It may also have been thought that the plaintiffs having proceeded to a sale, and having obtained the sheriff's deed, their rights were purely legal, and their remedy an action of ejectment. But an error of this sort was no good cause for dismissal, but only for a transfer of the cause to the proper docket. Mansf. Dig. 4925 et seq.; Talbot v. Wilkins, 31 Ark. 411; Moss v. Adams, 32 Ark. 562; Little Rock & Ft. S. R. Co. v. Perry, 37 Ark. 164; Conger v. Cotton, Id. 286. Courts of equity and of law have jurisdiction to relieve against frauds upon creditors; and, where no motion is made to correct an error in the adoption of proceedings, the court may either transfer upon its own motion, or may proceed to a trial upon the...