Anthony v. Boyd

• Decision Date: 30 July 1887
• Citation: 15 R.I. 495,10 A. 657
• Parties: ANTHONY and others v. BOYD and others.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

10 A. 657

15 R.I. 495

ANTHONY and others

v. BOYD and others.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 30, 1887.

Bill in equity to set aside conveyances of realty as fraudulent, and for an injunction. On the respondents' petition for a rehearing. The respondents filed their petition for a rehearing after the opinion printed in Index Z, p. 124, 8 Atl. Bep. 701.

Charles Hart and William G. Koelker, for complainants. James M, Ripley, John F. Lonsdale, and George J. West, for respondents.

STINESS, J. We think the first and second assignments of error, upon which the petition for a rehearing is based, are not well taken. The answer does not set out that Virginia J. Boyd bought the land sought to be reached by this bill as an innocent purchaser for value, but avers that her husband, Jonathan Boyd, was to make the advance of $10,000 stipulated to be paid to Alfred Anthony in the agreement made about the Chicago land; and that the mortgage held by said Anthony was to be transferred to Jonathan, and the mortgage held by the Jackson Bank foreclosed under his direction. The testimony, put in the most favorable light for the defendants, supports the averment of the answer, and shows that if Virginia's money went into the transaction it went in as a loan to her husband. It does not show that she received the conveyance of the land fa payment of that loan, but, inferentially, the loan was paid in cash, and the parties treated the land as William's, and not hers. Lf Jonathan's money was advanced, it was repaid to him; if it was Virginia's money, it was repaid to her husband, who acted as her agent in the matter, the same person from whom it had been received. It was not money put out for the purchase of this land, for it was not part of the arrangement that it should go to her. The court is of opinion that the finding that she was not an innocent purchaser for value was correct.

The third ground for the petition assumes that the court held in its opinion in this case that renewed statements of a fraud constitute a new fraud which will avoid a compromise of that same fraud. Such is not the fact. The opinion distinctly stated that the fraud which entitles the complainant to relief was perpetrated at the time of the agreement. It arose in this way. The Chicago property had been transferred by William to Jonathan Boyd on account of a pretended indebtedness. Two creditors did not believe this was an honest transfer, and attached the property as William's. Then came the negotiations which led to the agreement, in which the Boyds insisted upon and renewed previous statements about the large debt due from William to Jonathan, and also stated that Jonathan was to increase that debt by a further advance of $10,000, for all of which his only security was to be the mortgages on the land in Providence and Chicago. The idea that was carried was that William had nothing, and that Jonathan was doing all this. It now appears that the Chicago property and its proceeds belonged to William, and that Jonathan did nothing more than to loan his brother $10,000 for a short time, which sum was repaid in February, 1881; and that William held, and in part disposed of, the property in Providence as his own. The misrepresentation upon which the court thinks relief...