Brunskill v. Wallace
| Decision Date | 14 December 1937 |
| Docket Number | 43770. |
| Parties | BRUNSKILL et al. v. WALLACE et al. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Sioux County; W. C. Garberson, Judge.
This is an action brought by the trustees of the First National Bank of Hawarden against the defendants to set aside as fraudulent against creditors a conveyance of certain property by the defendant F. B. Wallace to his codefendant Frank D. Wallace. Decree was entered setting aside the deed. Hence this appeal.
Affirmed.
Gantt & Coffman, of Hawarden, for appellants.
L. R Ball of Hawarden, and Klay & Klay, of Orange City, for appellees.
In brief outline, plaintiffs' petition charges that on the 8th day of November, 1934, the defendant F. B. Wallace (who will hereafter be referred to as the father) conveyed to his son and codefendant, Frank D., the father's interest in certain real estate. This interest consisted of one-third of certain property derived through the death of the wife and mother of these defendants. The plaintiffs allege that at the time of this transfer the father was indebted to the bank in a substantial sum, and was wholly insolvent; that the conveyance was made for the express purpose of hindering and defrauding creditors, a purpose known to the son at the time he accepted the deed.
Other parties were made defendants, but their interests need not be considered herein.
The answer of the defendants, while admitting the execution of the deed, was in effect a denial. In another division of the answer it was claimed that the transfer was made in satisfaction of a debt claimed to be owing to the son. A third division sets up in detail the source from which it is claimed arose a debt from the father to the son in excess of the value of the property conveyed.
On the trial the court found the transfer to have been in fact fraudulent and for the purpose of hindering creditors, and set aside the deed except as to certain homestead interest. This being an equity case, we have been under the necessity of examining the record in full, and careful attention to the testimony upon which the trial court acted persuades us that the decree entered below was correct and should not be disturbed.
While the briefs of the parties contain many citations to sustain well-established and uncontroverted propositions of law, the case is strictly one of fact, and no good purpose would be subserved by analyzing at length either the cases or the testimony.
Among the propositions urged by defendants is one to the effect that the plaintiffs, having called defendants as witnesses were bound by the statements made, implying the further thought that the court might not use its judgment and common sense in determining whether the testimony of the defendants was credible or not. The rule of law that one who calls a witness may not impeach him in the ordinary way calls for the citation of no authority in its support. Neither can there be any question that if the testimony appears to be inherently improbable or lacking in credit, or made to appear so by the testimony of other witnesses, the court is not bound by the language in which the witnesses frame their answers. In any way in which the testimony in the cause before us is viewed there is intruded upon the consciousness the conviction that the transaction was what the court found it to be, and not what the defendants claim it was.
From the record upon which it is sought to rely as a basis for support of this deed, every element of sound or even business sense is absent. One item of alleged consideration was a half of the profit claimed to have been derived by a sale of an ice business ten or twelve years before. There is almost a total absence of written record in all the transactions involved in the testimony. There is confusion and uncertainty in statement, and...
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