Erwin v. Holderman

• Decision Date: 20 June 1887
• Parties: ERWIN and others v. HOLDERMAN and another.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

5 S.W. 36

92 Mo. 333

ERWIN and others v. HOLDERMAN and another.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

June 20, 1887.

FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCES — CONSIDERATION.

A., whose land was about to be sold to satisfy judgment liens, attempted, through his son B., to negotiate a loan, and thus save the land. The money could not be obtained except on the security of B.'s land as well as A.'s, and the transaction was arranged by A. conveying to B., and by B. giving a deed of trust of all the land; it being agreed that, when the liens on A.'s land should be discharged, B.'s land should be released from the operation of the deed of trust, and that B. should reconvey A.'s land to A.'s wife. In accordance with this agreement, B. conveyed to A.'s wife some months after he became bound to do so, but in the meanwhile he contracted a debt, and, after the conveyance, his creditor attached the land, and subsequently brought a suit to set aside the deed from B. to A.'s wife as having been executed in fraud of creditors and without consideration. Held, that the suit could not be maintained.

Appeal from circuit court, Bates county.

Parkinson & Abernathy and J. T. Smith, for appellants. C. C. Bassett, for respondents.

BRACE, J.

This action was brought to set aside a deed to certain real estate situate in Bates county, executed by J. A. Holderman and wife to Jane Holderman, one of the defendants, dated the eighth day of March, 1882, on the ground that said deed was executed without consideration, and with the intent on the part of the said J. A. Holderman to hinder, delay, and defraud plaintiffs and other creditors of the said J. A. of the collection of their just debts, in which intent the said Jane participated. The evidence in the case, as preserved in the bill of exceptions, tends to prove the following state of facts: The defendants, Barton and Jane Holderman, are husband and wife. Barton Holderman bought the tract of land in question, containing about 400 acres in 1853, and lived upon it ever since, except during the war. Prior to the thirteenth of July, 1881, the said Barton had become involved in debt, and at that date some of these debts had been reduced to judgments, and were liens upon said land. Execution had been issued upon the principal one, and the land of the said Barton was about to be sold. In order to save the land, his son, the said J. A., undertook to negotiate a loan with one Everingham, to the amount of $2,750. Everingham, however, in view of the amount of liens on the land, was not willing to make the loan upon it. J. A. owned a tract of 160 acres in the same neighborhood, and Everingham proposed that if he (J. A.) would put in his land, also as security for the loan, he would make it; and, when the liens should be released from his father's land, he would release J. A.'s land from the debt. In pursuance of this arrangement, the said Barton and his wife, by their deed, dated the thirteenth day of July, 1881, conveyed his 400-acre tract to the said J. A. Holderman, with the understanding that when the...