Davis v. Yonge
| Decision Date | 04 February 1905 |
| Parties | DAVIS et al. v. YONGE et al. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Suit by Mollie E. Davis and others against Meta D. Yonge and others. From a decree for defendants, plaintiffs appeal. Reversed.
About 1893 a judgment for some six or seven hundred dollars was rendered in the St. Francis circuit court in favor of Jas. Yonge and F. H. White against J. M. Davis and other bondsmen of a sheriff of that county. An appeal was taken by the bondsmen to the Supreme Court. Davis at this time owned 200 acres of land in St. Francis county, upon which was the residence where he lived. In the fall of 1893, while the case above mentioned was pending in the Supreme Court, he sold this land to one Dennis, and executed a deed to him for it in January following. The price paid by Dennis for the land was $5,000, but a large portion of this was consumed in paying the mortgages and other debts of Davis. Besides these debts and liens which were paid off, Dennis required Davis to furnish security against the judgment above referred to, which had been rendered against Davis and other bondsmen of Wilson, and which was a lien on this land; so that out of the $5,000 only $950 was paid to Davis in cash. He soon afterwards used $400 of this money to purchase 600 or 700 acres of land in that county, and caused the conveyance to be made to his wife, Mollie E. Davis. Afterwards the judgment against him and the other bondsmen was affirmed by the Supreme Court, and an execution was levied on 320 acres of this land, which had been purchased in the name of his wife, the remainder of the land purchased having been previously disposed of by Davis and his wife. The 320 acres levied on were sold under the execution, and purchased by Yonge & White, the execution creditors. Before the time allowed for redemption expired Mrs. Davis brought this action to set aside and cancel the deed as a cloud on her title. The defendants appeared and filed an answer and cross-complaint in which they alleged that Mrs. Davis had no money or other means with which to purchase land, and that the land was bought and paid for by her husband, J. M. Davis, who at the time was involved in debt, and the conveyance taken in the name of his wife to put the property beyond the reach of his creditors, and especially to hinder and delay the defendants, Yonge & White, in the collection of their debt. They asked that the deed to her be set aside, and that she be declared to be a trustee holding the legal title for the use and benefit of defendants, Yonge & White, purchasers at the sale under the execution against her husband. Mrs. Davis filed an answer to the cross-complaint, denying the allegations thereof, and further alleged that the land in question was purchased by her with her own money, and was her property. James Yonge having died during the pendency of the action, his heirs were made parties defendants, and the cause revived against them. Mrs. Davis having, after suit commenced, sold a portion of the land to W. T. Bonner, he was allowed to become party plaintiff with her. On the hearing the chancellor found that there was no equity in plaintiffs' complaint, and that Yonge & White were entitled to have a charge fixed on the land to the extent of the balance due them on their judgment, the amount of taxes they had paid on the land, with interest at 6 per cent., the whole amounting to $420.20, and he gave judgment accordingly. Plaintiffs appealed.
McCulloch & McCulloch, for appellants. N. W. Norton, for appellees.
RIDDICK, J. (after stating the facts).
This is an action by a wife to set aside and cancel a sale of land claimed by her, which sale had been made under an execution issued against her husband. The execution creditors resist her action on the ground that the land was the property of her husband, and that the title thereto had been placed in the name of his wife in a fraudulent effort to shield it from his creditors. The price which was paid for this land which was conveyed to the wife was $400, and this money was obtained by the sale of a tract of 200 acres owned by the husband, and on which was his home, and which he sold for $5,000. But before this sale was made a judgment in favor of Yonge & White, the defendants in this case, had already been rendered against the husband and other sureties on a sheriff's bond, and this judgment was a lien on the land sold by the husband subject to the claim of homestead. For this reason the husband was compelled to give the purchaser indemnity against the enforcement of this judgment in the event it was affirmed by the Supreme Court, to which court the case had been appealed. The judgment was afterwards affirmed, but there is nothing in the evidence to explain why the judgment was not enforced by a levy upon this land upon which the judgment was a lien to the extent that it exceeded the area allowed by law for a homestead. Counsel for defendants say that, the judgment being a lien on this land, they have a right to follow the proceeds of such...
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