Baker v. Jordan

• Decision Date: 30 June 1875
• Citation: 73 N.C. 145
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: HENRY A. BAKER v. WILLIAM G. JORDAN, and others.

73 N.C. 145

HENRY A. BAKER

v.WILLIAM G. JORDAN, and others.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

June Term, 1875.

*1 Where A, a feme sole, engaged to be married to B, on the day before the marriage conveyed to C, without a valuable consideration, a lot, the only property she owned, without the knowledge or consent or B, her intended husband: It was held, that such conveyance was a fraud upon the marital rights of the husband, and therefore void.

CASE AGREED, heard before Clarke, J., at Spring Term, 1874, WILSON Superior Court.

On the 10th day of September, 1872, the defendant, Catharine Baker, then Catharine Jordan, was seized in fee as tenant in common with one Eugene Jordan, of a lot in the town of Wilson, containing one acre, it being all the property owned by said Catharine.

On the 11th day of December, 1872, the defendant Catharine conveyed by deed, the consideration of which was love and affection, (as appears upon the face of said deed) her interest in said lot to Mittie S. Jordan, wife of W. G. Jordan and step-mother of said Catharine, with whom she was then living, without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiff, her then intended husband.

On the 12th day of December, 1872, after an engagement of some months, the plaintiff and defendant, Catharine, intermarried.

On the 27th day of January, 1873, the defendant, W. G. Jordan and wife Mittie S. Jordan and Eugene Jordan sold said lot to R. J. Taylor, for the sum of three thousand dollars, which was a fair price for the same.

The defendant, Taylor, knew at the time of the purchase, when the marriage of the plaintiff with the defendant, Catharine, was solemnized; and knew that the deed from Catharine to Mittie S. Jordan, was made on the day before said marriage, but had no knowledge or notice that the plaintiff did not know and consent to the previous conveyance from the said Catharine to Mittie S. Jordan, prior to the marriage.

If the Court shall be of opinion for the plaintiff, such judgment is to be entered as the Court shall be of opinion the plaintiff is entitled to, and for cost. Otherwise judgment is to be entered against plaintiff for cost.

It was adjudged by the Court: That the deed from Catharine Jordan to Mittie S. Jordan, made on the 11th day of December, 1872, be surrendered up for cancellation, and that the defendants, W. G. Jordan, Mittie S. Jordan and R. J. Taylor, reconvey to Catharine Baker her interest in the lot of land conveyed to Mittie S. Jordan by Catharine Jordan, on the 11th day of December, 1872, and that plaintiff recover costs of this action.

From this judgment the defendant, R. J. Taylor, appealed.

Moore & Gatling, for appellant .

Smith & Strong and Clarke & Son, contra .

PEARSON, C. J.

*2 The plaintiff marries a lady, whose only estate is a lot in the town of Wilson. In a short time he finds out that on the day before the marriage she had executed a deed of gift to her step-mother, conveying all of her interest in the lot. So instead of a bride with a fortune of $3,000 (the estimated value of the lot) he has a bride stripped of everything except her clothes.

Before 1868 this would have been declared to be “a bare faced fraud” upon his marital rights. But the new Constitution and the “marriage act,” Bat Rev.,...