Bohannon v. Clark

• Decision Date: 11 February 1904
• Citation: 78 S.W. 479
• Parties: BOHANNON v. CLARK et al.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

78 S.W. 479

BOHANNON v. CLARK et al.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

February 11, 1904

Appeal from Circuit Court, Barren County.

"Not to be officially reported."

Action by G. M. Bohannon, trustee in bankruptcy of the estate of W H. Clark, against W. H. Clark and others. The trustee appeals from the judgment, and defendant Lillian Clark files a cross-appeal. Affirmed.

C. H Hackett and Luther James, for appellant.

Baird &amp Richardson, for appellees.

SETTLE J.

W. H Clark, of Barren county, upon his own petition, was declared a bankrupt in the year 1902, and the appellant, G. M Bohannon, was elected trustee of his estate. Thereafter this action was instituted by the appellant, as such trustee, in the Barren circuit court, to discover and subject to the payment of the debts of the bankrupt certain personal property alleged to have been transferred by him to his wife, the appellee Lillian Clark, and to set aside a deed which he made to her shortly before the filing of his petition in bankruptcy, whereby he conveyed to her his undivided interest of one-half in a certain tract of land. The wife was made a defendant in the action, and she and her husband filed separate answers. The answer of the latter contained specific denial of the averments of the petition, and answers to certain questions annexed to the petition. That of the wife, in addition to a traverse of the averments of the petition, alleged that the land sought to be subjected to the payment of the debts of the bankrupt was purchased by her alone, but that, by mistake of the vendor, the same had been conveyed to her and her husband jointly; that she had furnished all of the purchase money that had been paid thereon with the proceeds of a farm in Green county, which she sold before the purchase of the Barren county land. Both answers were controverted by reply, and after the taking of depositions by the parties the case was submitted for trial, and the chancellor rendered a judgment setting aside the deed made to the appellee Lillian Clark by her husband, and vesting in the appellant trustee the title to the land thereby conveyed for the benefit of the husband's creditors; but as it appeared that Lillian Clark had paid, of the purchase money due the vendor of herself and her husband, $1,100, one-half of which should have been paid by her husband, the judgment gave her a lien on that part of the land adjudged the latter's trustee for $550--one-half of the sum so paid by her. It further appearing from the answer and cross-petition of Lizzie Anderson that she was the owner, by assignment, of two of the notes, aggregating $680, executed by Lillian and W. H. Clark in part payment of the purchase money on the land as a whole, a supplemental judgment was rendered by the chancellor, directing a sale of all the land, or enough thereof to pay the two notes mentioned. After the entering of the original and supplemental judgments, the appellant filed an amended petition, seeking to recover of the appellee Lillian Clark rents for certain years upon the half of the land attempted to be conveyed her by her husband, but the deed to which was set aside by the judgment of the lower court; it being claimed that she had had possession of and cultivation of the same during these years. But the claim to such rents was disallowed by the court. From this judgment, and so much of the first judgment as allowed the appellee a lien upon the half of the land attempted to be conveyed her by her husband, the trustee has appealed; and from so much...