Carpenter v. Osborne

• Decision Date: 15 June 1886
• Citation: 7 N.E. 823,102 N.Y. 552
• Parties: CARPENTER v. OSBORNE.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

102 N.Y. 552

7 N.E. 823

CARPENTER

v.OSBORNE.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 15, 1886.

Appeal from judgment general term supreme court, Third department, affirming judgment of Cortland special term.

J. McGuire, for appellant, Meranda A. Osborne.

Frederick Hatch, for respondent, Sophronia Carpenter.

RUGER, C. J.

The plaintiff recovered five successive judgments in justice's court against the defendant John Carpenter, for about $30 each, on October 14, 1879, January 9, 1880, May 7, 1880, July 14, 1880, and November 13, 1880, respectively. The judgments of January 9th and May 7th were both appealed from to the county court, and on April 26, 1881, were, after a retrial of the actions, affirmed by that court, and judgments of affirmance were regularly entered. Each of the actions were brought to recover an installment of interest alleged to be due to the plaintiff from John Carpenter upon a written instrument dated January 11, 1873, and executed under the hands and seals of the plaintiff and John Carpenter. It recited that theretofore the said John Carpenter had executed a mortgage for $1,700 to M. J. Robinson, to be applied to the support of Sophronia Carpenter, his wife, and in consideration thereof, and of $300 in cash then paid to said Robinson, she had agreed to support herself, and live separate and apart from her husband during her natural life, and receive said sum in full discharge of all claims upon John Carpenter, or upon his property, either real or personal, and would execute releases of her dower right in his real estate, and would refrain from incurring debts for which said John Carpenter should be liable; and that, as the said Sophronia preferred that said mortgage should be discharged, and said John's obligation in writing be substituted therefor, it was agreed that, ‘in consideration of the premises, said John Carpenter hereby agrees to and with said Sophronia Carpenter that he will pay to her $26.25, January 1, §873, and $26.71, April 1, 1873, and $27.17, July 1, 1873, and $27.63, October 1, 1873, and like sums on each and every first day of January, April, July, and October for and during the term of her natural life,’ and pay the said principal sum to her heirs upon her decease. The said Sophronia also renewed the several covenants and agreements hereinbefore recited, and agreed that in case she should refuse, for 10 days after request therefor, to execute releases of her dower right in said Carpenter's real estate, that all her rights to the payment of interest as provided for should be forfeited. Upon the trial of the several actions referred to the validity of this agreement, and the status of Sophronia Carpenter as a creditor of John Carpenter, was litigated between the parties thereto, and was in each of said actions determined in her favor.

The judgments rendered in each of these actions were, in the absence of proof of fraud in their procurement, conclusive evidence, not only as against John Carpenter, but also as to all other persons, of the several questions of fact and law material to the issues tried which were thereby determined. Candee v. Lord, 2 N. Y. 274;Hall v. Stryker, 27 N. Y. 603;Burgess v. Simonson, 45 N. Y. 227.

The defendants acquired title to the real estate in question from John Carpenter, and necessarily took it at the risk of any incapacity in him to convey a good title, and, so far as that was affected by the rights of existing creditors, his fraudulent grantees were equally bound by such legal adjudications as might be made against him in respect thereto as John Carpenter himself. Candee v. Lord, supra; Rogers v. Rogers, 3 Paige, 379;Shufelt v. Shufelt, 9 Paige, 137;French v. Shotwell, 6 Johns. Ch. 234;Raymond v. Richmond, 78 N. Y. 354; Bigelow, Estop. 102; Voorhees v. Seymour, 26 Barb. 585. It did not, therefore, lie open to any of the defendants, upon the trial of this action, to contest the validity of such agreement, or the liability of John Carpenter as a judgment debtor thereon, or the legal competency of husband and wife to contract with each other, for the questions were res adjudicata, and placed beyond the power of retrial.

This present action was founded upon the last four judgments described, and was brought for the purpose of setting aside certain transfers of real property made by the defendant John Carpenter to the other defendants, as being fraudulent and void as against his creditors. To entitle the plaintiff to maintain such an action it was essential that she should establish her character as a judgment creditor of the fraudulent grantor, and the fact that the conveyances challenged as fraudulent were so in fact, and stood in the way of the collection of her judgment. Adsit v. Butler, 87 N. Y. 585; section 1891, Code Civil Proc.; 2 Rev. St. § 175, pt. 2, c. 1, tit. 2, § 38. The production and proof of a judgment in her favor for a sum of money against the debtor, rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, was, if not impeached for fraud, conclusive evidence in such an action of her character as such creditor. To establish the issue on her part in this action the plaintiff put in evidence the respective judgment rolls in the several actions above referred to, and the several executions issued thereon, each of which were severally duly returned unsatisfied. She also proved the written agreement above referred to, and gave evidence tending to show that the several conveyances assailed were voluntarily made by her husband, with intent to defraud his creditors, and that the several grantees therein had knowledge of such intent and participated therein. The evidence, we think, sustained the conclusions of fact found by the trial court, which rendered judgment for the plaintiff, and it does not appear to us that any error of law was committed by that court which requires a reversal of such judgment.

The principal questions presented by the appellant's counsel upon the argument before us related to the invalidity of the separation agreement of January, 1873, and the incompetency of husband and wife to thus contract with each other. Since we have held that the defendants are precluded from raising those questions in this action, the further discussion of them would be unprofitable and unnecessary. It may, however, not be improper for us to say that we should be quite unwilling to yield our assent to the appellant's contention in respect thereto if we considered ourselves at liberty to enter into the consideration of the question.

Some other questions, however, were raised in the case, which will be briefly noticed:

The evidence showed that in December, 1881, the plaintiff procured a decree for an absolute divorce from her husband for adultery, and that the judgment in such action made no provision for her support from his property. It was claimed by the defendants that marriage was the gravamen of the separation agreement, and that its annulment by the decree necessarily subverted and destroyed the obligations of the contract. It is quite obvious that this proposition, if generally correct, would not affect the validity of judgments for lawful debts already obtained, and standing unpaid and unreversed when such decree was obtained. But we are...