Bean v. Patterson

• Decision Date: 23 May 1887
• Citation: 30 L.Ed. 1126,7 S.Ct. 1298,122 U.S. 496
• Parties: BEAN and another v. PATTERSON and others. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

122 U.S. 496

7 S.Ct. 1298

30 L.Ed. 1126

BEAN and another v. PATTERSON and others.¹

May 23, 1887.

James S. Botsford, for appellants debtedness of the said William Miller on account thereof, which said sum of $16,000, with interest thereon, is due and payable on the twenty-fifth day of June, A. D. 1876.'

It appears that William Miller was, in 1857, and for some years afterwards, a merchant in Catasauqua county, Pennsylvania, and was successful in business there. Subsequently he became a contractor for the raising of mineral ores in that state, and at a later period was engaged in building the Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad. In 1868, he was a contractor on the Union Pacific Railroad. In this business he made large sums of money. In 1873, he had a contract for building the whole or part of the Chicago & Atlantic Railway in Ohio, and, on the twentieth of August of that year, he sublet to the plaintiffs the construction of 12 miles of the road. By the terms of his contract with them he was to pay for the work of each month during the following month, after the receipt of the estimate of the work by the engineer in charge. The work, as thus estimated for the months of September and October of that year, amounted to $7,153, and the subsequent work in that and the following year carried this amount to about $14,000. For the indebtedness thus incurred, the plaintiffs brought suit in the circuit court of Atchison county, and sued out a writ of attachment, which was levied upon the land embraced in the trust deed to William L. Patterson. Judgment was recovered in that suit for $14,000, but to the enforcement of the attachment the trust deed to Patterson was in the way, and, in order that the attachment might be enforced by a sale of the land, the present suit was commenced to set the deed aside.

The truth of the recital that the indebtedness, to secure which the deed was executed, was for sums realized and received by William Miller, from the sae of the individual property of Mary Miller, is assailed, and the statement averred to be false, and the instrument charged to have been executed to defraud the plaintiffs and other creditors of Miller. In support of the truth of the recital, several deeds of valuable property to Mrs. Miller, executed and delivered in 1865, 1866, and 1868 were produced, and the property shown to have been afterwards used to pay the debts of William Miller. Thus, on the ninth of November, 1865, she received a deed from one Thomas and wife of a certain tract of ground in Catasaugua, Pennsylvania, reciting a consideration of $8,050. On February 26, 1866, she received a deed from Horn and wife of another tract of land in the same place, for the alleged consideration of $1,200. On April 1, 1868, she acquired a further piece of property in that place by deed from one Koons and wife, reciting a consideration of $6,000. These three deeds were for 'her only proper use and behoof.'

It is conceded that William Miller, the husband, furnished the money with which these several tracts were purchased. That fact does not affect the validity of the deeds, nor the right of the wife to hold the property for her own use. He was at the time possessed of ample means, beyond any claim against him. Indeed, it does not appear that he was then in debt at all, and, as we said in Jones v. Clifton, 101 U. S. 225: 'The right of a husband to settle a portion of his property upon his wife, and thus provide against the vicissitudes of fortune, when this can be done without impairing existing claims of creditors, is indisputable. Its exercise is upheld by the courts as tending not only to the future comfort and...