Belt v. Raguet

• Decision Date: 01 January 1864
• Citation: 27 Tex. 471
• Parties: HELEN BELT, CLAIMANT, AND H. W. BENDY AND OTHERS, INTERVENORS, v. HENRY RAGUET, PLAINTIFF IN EXECUTION.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

27 Tex. 471

HELEN BELT, CLAIMANT, AND H. W. BENDY AND OTHERS, INTERVENORS,

v.HENRY RAGUET, PLAINTIFF IN EXECUTION.

Supreme Court of Texas.

1864.

It is an elementary principle that the fraud of a grantor taints his conveyance, except as to purchasers for a valuable consideration.

The mere acceptance, without a valuable consideration, of a fraudulent conveyance, is evidence of a participation by the grantee in the fraud of the grantor; and when the fraudulent purpose of the grantor is shown, those who claim under the conveyance can only rebut the presumption of their participation in the fraud, and escape its effects, by actual or presumptive evidence that they are purchasers for a valuable consideration.

NOTE.--It is only after a fraudulent purpose is shown that the purchaser is required to prove that he paid value for his purchase. (King v. Russell, 40 Tex., 124.)

A person who was largely indebted, executed on the 22d of March, 1847, a conveyance for an ostensible money consideration of all or the greater part of his property, consisting of his headright league of land, to his father-in-law, which conveyance was recorded soon thereafter. On the same 22d of March, the grantee executed a deed of gift of the same property to his daughter, the wife of his grantor; but this deed was not recorded until the 5th of May, 1858. Held, that the two conveyances were to be construed together as parts of a single transaction, which of itself manifested the fraudulent intent of the grantor to secure his property against his creditors; and that evidence of the pecuniary circumstances of the parties, and of contemporaneous conveyances between them of other property, was admissible for the purpose of showing the fraudulent purposes of the parties in the execution of the deeds of March, 1847.

NOTE.--Tuttle v. Turner, 28 Tex., 759.

Held, further, that under the foregoing circumstances, and there being no visible change of possession under the fraudulent deeds, the statute of limitations of ten years could not avail the wife of the debtor upon her claim to negroes purchased in her name with proceeds of the land, which had been levied on by an execution emanating from a judgment rendered against the debtor in October, 1847, for a long pre-existing debt.

The case of Reynolds v. Lansford (16 Tex., 291) referred to, and the doctrine there enunciated, that a married woman may, under a fraudulent conveyance from her husband, duly recorded for the time prescribed by the statute, acquire a title by limitation against his creditors, pronounced to be an obiter dictum; though the correctness of the doctrine is neither affirmed nor denied.

Property acquired by purchase during a marriage is presumed as to strangers to be community property, notwithstanding the title is taken in the name of the wife; and the presumption is not rebutted by the recording of the conveyance.

A fraudulent conveyance being declared by the statute to be void as against the creditors of the fraudulent grantor, it follows as a necessary consequence that no length of possession by the debtor himself can have any effect upon the rights of the creditor, so long as his debt remains unsatisfied and he has not lost his remedy by laches; and as a fraudulent vendee acquires no title as against the creditor, he can bar a recovery by the creditor only by means of such adverse possession as will give him title.

When contradictory charges are given upon a matter material to the issue, and especially when there is a controversy about the facts, and the jury may have been misled, a new trial will be granted.

Though the party having the burden of proof is entitled to the opening and conclusion of the argument to the jury, yet an error of practice on a question of this kind, when it is apparent that no injury has resulted to the appellant, affords no sufficient ground for a reversal of the judgment. It might be otherwise in a case of contested facts, wherein the opening and conclusion might be matter of substantial right.

A mere lien upon property taken in execution, without a right to its possession or control, and without a showing that the lien will be impaired by a sale of the property under the execution, furnishes no ground for the interposition of a claim for the trial of the right of property. It seems that the holder of a lien, if endangered by the levy, should invoke the equitable powers of the court by an original proceeding.

On a trial of the right of property taken in execution, if third persons claiming prior liens on the property be permitted to intervene at all, they should be allowed to do so only upon making oath or giving bond as required for trials of the right of property, or for an injunction against the execution. An intervention of such a character, without oath or bond, should be dismissed by the court below on motion; and if a motion for its dismissal be overruled there, and judgment be improperly rendered for the intervenors, the error, if reserved and assigned, will be corrected in this court by a reversal of the judgment and a dismissal of the intervention.

APPEAL from Tyler. Tried below before the Hon. J. M. Maxcy.

This was a proceeding for the trial of the right of property to certain negroes, instituted under the statute.

On the 12th day of October, 1847, Henry Raguet obtained a judgment of the district court of Tyler county against one Samuel T. Belt, for $1,248, together with interest and cost. This judgment became dormant by a failure to have an execution issued, and remained dormant until the 28th of October, 1857, when it was revived. On the 29th of December, 1857, an execution was issued on this judgment, which, on the 19th of January, 1858, was levied on three certain negroes pointed out by Raguet, and found in possession of Samuel T. Belt and Helen Belt, his wife. Helen Belt claimed the negroes so levied on, as her separate property, and filed her oath and bond under the statute. The claim was made and the oath and bond filed on the 25th of January, 1858.

On the 23d of April, 1858, Bendy, McDaniel and Hyde filed an intervention, in which they allege that on the 14th of January, 1858, Belt and wife being indebted to them in the sum of $457, by note, to secure the payment of the same, executed and delivered their deed of trust upon the negroes levied on and in controversy in these proceedings. They pray that said amount of indebtedness be first satisfied out of said negroes before the Raguet debt or any part of the same.

On the same day Henry W. Bendy also filed his intervention, alleging that on the 28th of October, 1858, he recovered a judgment in the district court of Tyler county against S. T. Belt and Helen Belt, his wife, for $751.66, and interest and cost, together with a decree of said court foreclosing a mortgage upon the negroes in controversy, and ordering them to be sold to satisfy said judgment.

On the 29th of April, 1858, Helen Belt filed an answer, setting forth specifically the nature of her claim and title to the negroes in question.

On the 10th of November, 1858, the intervenor, H. W. Bendy, by leave of the court, filed an amendment to his original intervention, and on the same day the other intervenors, Bendy, McDaniel and Hyde and Van Vleck, also filed an amendment, in which they admit the priority of the claim of H. W. Bendy, and deny that the negroes are subject to the claim of Raguet.

On the 15th of November, 1858, Helen Belt, by leave of the court, filed an amendment to her original answer, in which she more fully states her claim and deraigns her title to the negroes, alleging that on the 22d day of March, 1847, one Owen Taylor, her father, made, executed and delivered to her a deed of gift to a certain tract of land; that said land thereby became her separate property; that on the _____ day of _____, 185--, she sold said tract of land to one Sims, and with the money received upon said sale she purchased from H. W. Bendy the negroes in question.

On the 15th of November, 1858, Henry Raguet filed a general denial of all the allegations in the answers of Helen Belt, and of the intervenors. On the same day Raguet filed a motion to quash the affidavit and bond filed in the cause: 1st. Because the affidavit does not swear that said claim is made in “good faith.” 2d. Because the affidavit is signed by Helen Belt, by her husband, S. T. Belt, and the affidavit states that Samuel T. Belt made the oath. 3d. Because the bond is not signed by S. T. Belt, he purporting to be one of the principals. The same motion also prays to dismiss or refuse to entertain the pleas of intervention filed: 1st. Because no affidavits have been filed and no bonds given by said intervenors. 2d. Because the intervention of said H. W. Bendy shows that the judgment mentioned has become dormant, no execution having been issued within twelve months from its rendition.

On the 2d of May, 1859, the claimant, Helen Belt, by leave of the court, amended her original affidavit by substituting another one.

On the 1st of November, 1859, Raguet, by leave of the court, filed an amendment to his former pleadings, in which he alleges that the deed of gift of the land from Owen Taylor to Helen Belt, on the 22d of March, 1847, was fraudulent and made with the intent and purpose of delaying, hindering and defrauding Raguet and other creditors of Samuel T. Belt; which frauds Raguet alleges to have been concealed by said Owen Taylor, Helen Belt and Samuel T. Belt until the levy of the execution. He alleges that S. T. Belt has been largely indebted to him since the 1st day of November, 1842, at which time said Belt executed to him his notes; that on the 25th of January, 1847, he sued Belt on the notes, and that service was had upon Belt on the 1st of March, 1847; that on the 22d of March, 1847, Belt made a transfer to Owen Taylor, his wife's father, of property amounting in value to about $10,000 (naming the property); that Owen Taylor paid no...