Gibbs v. Adams

• Decision Date: 21 October 1905
• Citation: 89 S.W. 1008
• Parties: GIBBS et ux. v. ADAMS et al.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

89 S.W. 1008

GIBBS et ux. v. ADAMS et al.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

October 21, 1905.

Appeal from Hot Spring Chancery Court; Leland Leatherman, Chancellor.

Suit between E. Adams and others and W. T. Gibbs and wife. From the judgment rendered, Mrs. Gibbs appeals. Affirmed.

Mehaffey & Armistead and Duffie & Duffie, for appellant. E. H. Vance, Jr., for appellees.

RIDDICK, J.

This is a controversy between E. Adams and other creditors of W. T. Gibbs and his wife, Sidney Gibbs, over a piece of land which she claims as a homestead, and exempt from execution against her husband. The chancery court, to which the case was transferred, held that the evidence failed to show that the land was a homestead, and ordered the land sold to pay the debts. Mrs. Gibbs appealed.

Briefly stated, the evidence shows that W. T. Gibbs owned about 2½ acres of land in the town of Malvern, on which was his dwelling and homestead. A street of the town divided the land in two parts. On one side was the dwelling house and 1.40 acres of land; on the other about 1 acre of land, on which was a wagon yard and barn and a small one-room house, formerly used in connection with the wagon yard as a camphouse. These lastnamed buildings were in a bad state of repair. Some time in March, 1902, Gibbs and his wife sold the 1.40 acres of land on which their dwelling was located. Gibbs also endeavored to sell the other acre. Shortly after this sale Gibbs abandoned his wife and family, and left for parts unknown, but sent a message to his wife, directing her to move into the small house across the road which had been used as a camphouse. Mrs Gibbs had a small amount of furniture and household goods carried across the street and placed in the camphouse. The witnesses say that this furniture and goods was of little value. Some of them say that all of it was not worth over $5. After the attachments were levied Mrs. Gibbs made no attempt to occupy the house, and neither she nor any member of her family has ever lived in it. In fact the witnesses say that the roof of the cabin was so full of holes, and the structure so dilapidated, that it was not suited for a human habitation.

Now a homestead in an incorporated town is by our Constitution limited to one acre. The burden was on the homestead claimant to show, either that this land across the street from the dwelling, and which she now claims, was a part of the homestead upon which she lived, or that it had been impressed as a homestead after the...