Fields v. Walker

• Decision Date: 06 March 1917
• Citation: Fields v. Walker, 174 Ky. 461, 192 S.W. 491 (Ky. Ct. App. 1917)
• Parties: FIELDS v. WALKER ET AL.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

192 S.W. 491

174 Ky. 461

FIELDS v. WALKER ET AL.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

March 6, 1917

Appeal from Circuit Court, Perry County.

Suit by Sarah Fields against Jeremiah Walker and others. Decree dismissing the petition, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Miller Wheeler & Craft, of Hazard, for appellant.

Faulkner & Faulkner, and John B. Eversole, all of Hazard, for appellees.

SETTLE C.J.

In this action brought in the Perry circuit court by the appellant Sarah Fields, against Jeremiah Walker, R. F. Fields, and others, she sought the cancellation of a deed made by her brothers and sisters, named in the petition, to her former husband, R. F. Fields, a deed made by the latter to the appellee Jeremiah Walker, and the recovery of the land described in both deeds. It was, in substance, alleged in the petition that shortly prior to the death of her father, John Walker, Sr., his children, including the appellant, by his direction divided among them his lands, the possession of which he surrendered to them for that purpose, and that though she joined in the various deeds of partition conveying to her brothers and sisters the lands allotted them respectively in the division of their father's lands, the part allotted her in the division, without her knowledge or consent and by fraud and collusion between her then husband R. F. Fields, and her brother, Jeremiah Walker, was by deed conveyed by her brothers and sisters and the wives and husbands, respectively, of the latter, to R. F. Fields, and by him, several years after her father's death, to Jeremiah Walker, in which last-named deed she, by the fraud of R. F. Fields and Jeremiah Walker, and their threats that R. F. Fields would take her life if she refused, was forced to unite; that in the year 1915, R. F. Fields, by suit in the Perry circuit court, obtained a decree divorcing her, but without restoring to her the land mentioned, the title to which he acquired in the manner and by the fraudulent means above indicated; that prior to her former husband's obtention of the divorce from her, she labored under the disability of coverture, which, together with her fear of him, prevented her from bringing an action to recover her land; and that she did not discover that the land allotted her in the division of her father's lands had been conveyed by her brothers and sisters to R. F. Fields until shortly before the institution of this action to recover it.

A general demurrer filed by R. F. Fields and Jeremiah Walker to the petition was sustained by the circuit court and her petition dismissed at her cost. From the judgment manifesting these rulings, she has appealed.

The judgment does not indicate the ground upon which the circuit court sustained the demurrer. It is claimed by appellant's counsel that it was because of the opinion entertained by the court that the action was barred by the statute of limitations, and by appellees' counsel that it was because the court was of...