Doak v. Runyan

• Decision Date: 02 November 1875
• Citation: 33 Mich. 75
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: James Doak v. Alexander B. Runyan and others

33 Mich. 75

James Doak v. Alexander B. Runyan and others

Supreme Court of Michigan

November 2, 1875

Heard October 26, 1875

Appeal in Chancery from Clinton Circuit.

Decree dismissing the bill reversed, with costs of both courts and a decree rendered for complainant.

Spaulding & Cranson, for complainant.

R Strickland, for defendants.

OPINION

Campbell, J:

The bill in this cause is filed in aid of an execution, to set aside as fraudulent a deed made by Alexander B. Runyan, a judgment debtor, to his wife, and a subsequent mortgage from husband and wife to defendant Conn. The deed was made November 1, 1873, and the mortgage, November 15, 1873, for one thousand dollars, payable in five years, with ten per cent. interest. The execution was levied on the 19th of November.

The defendant Conn does not appear in this court, and as his mortgage was given for a much larger sum than he advanced and he does not defend, this security is of no account except as it may have some connection with the deed. The validity of the deed is the only important question before us. It seems to be conceded the mortgage is paid or settled.

The deed was made during the pendency of the suit on which the complainant obtained judgment, and on the eve of the judgment. The case shows beyond any doubt that the deed was made to save the land from levy. It was fraudulent, unless made on an equity prior and superior to complainant's, and to a person entitled to rely on that equity.

This is claimed by Mrs. Runyan to be her position. Her defense consists of a prior agreement to purchase from her husband, on terms which were fair and for a money consideration, and which had been fulfilled. The contract set up in the answer was a written contract dated February 2, 1869, for one thousand dollars payable in four years, and subject to all mortgages, and on payment she was to have a quitclaim deed. The deed actually given purports to be a deed of gift for a good, and not for a valuable consideration, and makes no reference to the contract. According to the written terms, the contract was payable in full in February, 1873.

The proof, assuming it to be satisfactory in quality, shows that the parties were married in 1867, when Mrs. Runyan seems to have had some property in New York, on which she realized afterwards from one thousand to one thousand five hundred dollars. She paid a note of her husband's for two hundred and eighty-one dollars in February or March, 1868. They moved on to the land in the fall of 1868, in October. Afterwards Mr. Runyan swears there was a verbal contract, the terms of which do not appear, unless inferentially taken to have been the same as the written one. Mrs. Runyan makes no reference to a verbal bargain directly. She claims to have made annual payments, and to have paid in full before the deed She gives...