Braley v. Byrnes
| Decision Date | 30 September 1878 |
| Citation | 25 Minn. 297 |
| Parties | Kneelon B. Braley v. Patrick Byrnes |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action to recover possession of certain hotel furniture, claimed by plaintiff under a chattel mortgage made by one Root, and which had been taken from Root's possession by the defendant, as sheriff, by virtue of a writ of attachment in an action brought against him by one Greene. The defendant pleaded that the mortgage to the plaintiff was fraudulent and at the trial in the district court for Rice county before Lord, J., introduced evidence tending to prove that plaintiff's mortgage was made at the same time with another mortgage to one Hildreth, a brother-in-law of Root that the latter mortgage was without consideration and made to defraud creditors, and that the two mortgages formed but one transaction on Root's part, and were both made by him with fraudulent intent, and that the plaintiff knew of such intent. The plaintiff introduced evidence tending to show the contrary. The jury found for the plaintiff, a new trial was refused, and the defendant appealed. This was the third trial of the case, two former verdicts having been set aside. See 20 Minn. 435; 21 Minn. 482.
Order affirmed.
Gordon E. Cole, for appellant.
Batchelder & Buckham and Geo. N. Baxter, for respondent.
This is the only question of law in the case: Does retaining possession by the mortgagor of the property in a chattel mortgage, duly filed, render the mortgage conclusively fraudulent and void, or does it merely raise such a presumption of fraudulent intent as imposes upon the mortgagee the onus of establishing actual good faith, and the absence of a purpose to defraud creditors? The old supreme court in New York held that continued possession in the mortgagor was conclusive evidence of a fraudulent intent, unless it was made to appear that a change of possession was physically impossible, or at least extremely difficult. But such has not been generally supposed to be the rule in this state, and, although until now the question has not been directly raised here, the court has made several decisions which assume a different rule, for it would not have been necessary to make them, had the rule been as formerly held in New York. See Edson v. Newell, 14 Minn. 228; Marsh v. Armstrong, 20 Minn. 81; Horton v. Williams, 21 Minn. 187; McCarthy v. Grace, 23 Minn. 182.
And that where the mortgage is duly filed, retaining possession by the mortgagor merely raises a presumption of...
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