Woodsworth v. Tanner

• Decision Date: 20 February 1888
• Parties: WOODSWORTH v. TANNER.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

7 S.W. 104

94 Mo. 124

WOODSWORTH v. TANNER.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

February 20, 1888.

1. HUSBAND AND WIFE — SEPARATE ESTATE — PURCHASE OF LANDS WITH.

A deed from a husband to his wife, who has furnished the purchase money from her separate estate, will be upheld against purchasers with notice of her rights.

2. EQUITY — POWERS OF — INCIDENTAL LEGAL RELIEF.

In an action by a wife to cancel a deed to her husband of land purchased from her separate estate, a court of equity, after having divested the legal title, will, as incidental to that relief, award a writ of possession.

Appeal from circuit court, Jackson county.

This was an action brought by M. A. Woodsworth to cancel and annul a sheriff's deed to one Trumbull, and the quitclaim deed of said Trumbull to the defendant, Edward Tanner, and to put plaintiff in possession of lands in controversy. Court below granted relief asked for, and defendants filed motion in arrest, and for a new trial, which were respectively overruled, and defendant appeals.

C. J. Bower, for appellant. Henry Smith, for respondent.

BLACK, J.

This was a suit in equity. The record as presented to us is strangely defective. As the evidence is not preserved, we assume, on the general finding for the plaintiff, that all of the matters stated in the petition were duly proved. The facts as shown by the abstract are these: The plaintiff, through her agent and husband, H. D. Woodsworth, contracted with the board of education for the purchase of a described acre of land. The plaintiff, from her separate means, furnished the consideration ($250) used in payment of the property. Before the board of education made a deed, H. D. Woodsworth conveyed the property directly to his wife, the plaintiff. Thereafter the board of education, by its deed, conveyed the land to H. D. Woodsworth. The plaintiff leased the property to the defendant, Tanner. Subsequently and after the above-mentioned deeds had been duly recorded, several judgments were obtained before a justice of the peace against H. D. Woodsworth, under which the property was sold as the property of H. D. Woodsworth, and Trumbull became the purchaser; and thereafter he made a quitclaim deed to defendant, who, as tenant of plaintiff, had attorned to Trumbull. The court made a decree, not preserved in the record; and it seems, when the motions for new trial and arrest came on for hearing, the court, of its own motion, made an amended decree, treated the motion as applying to it, and then overruled them. This decree divests the defendant of all title acquired by the Trumbull deed, and invests the same in the plaintiff, and is followed by an order to the sheriff to dispossess defendant, and put plaintiff in possession of the property.

1. The points made, and for the first time by the motions in arrest and for new trial, are that the petition contains two causes of action in one count, — one legal, and the other equitable; that the petition is in effect a suit in equity to recover possession of real estate. The appellant has misconceived the scope of the decree, which is within the prayer of the bill. It awards equitable relief by divesting defendant of the title, and then...