Grabill v. Moyer et al.
| Decision Date | 01 July 1863 |
| Citation | 45 Pa. 530 |
| Parties | Grabill <I>versus</I> Moyer <I>et al.</I> |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
The main question involved in this case was cautiously and well presented to the jury by the learned judge of the Court of Common Pleas. It must be conceded that the Act of April 11th 1848 gave to debtors greatly increased facilities for protecting their property against the just claims of creditors, and opened a wide door for the perpetration of frauds. Against such frauds we have endeavoured to erect every possible safeguard, consistent with our duty, to give full effect to the action of the legislature. As against the husband's creditors, we have held it incumbent upon the wife to show clearly that the property she claims is hers, and that it was not acquired from the husband after he became indebted. We have held that she cannot show this by the unaided declarations of the husband, and we have ruled that all conveyances made, or securities given to a wife by her husband when indebted, are to be closely scanned, the more so on account of the intimate relationship of the parties. But when the Act of Assembly declares as it does, that all property, real, personal, and mixed, which shall accrue to any married woman during coverture, by will, descent, deed of conveyance, or otherwise, shall be owned, used, and enjoyed by such married woman, as her own separate property: when the leading purpose of the act is to protect the wife's estate by excluding the husband, it is impossible for us to declare that the mere possession of it by the husband is proof that the title has passed from the wife to him. After it has been shown, as it was in this case, that the property accrued to the wife by descent from her father's and brother's estates, the presumption necessarily is, that it continued hers. In such a case, it lies upon one who asserts it to be the property of the husband, to prove a transmission of the title, either by gift or contract for value, for the law does not transmit it without the act of the parties. If mere possession were sufficient evidence of a gift, the Act of 1848 would be useless to the wife. Nothing is more easy than for the husband to obtain possession even against the consent of the wife. And where he obtains it with her consent, it can be at most but slight evidence of a gift.
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Exch. Trust Co. v. Godfrey
...deemed to hold it in trust for her benefit, in the absence of any direct evidence that she intended it for a gift to him." ¶30 In Grabill v. Moyer, 45 Pa. 530, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that all property, real, personal, or mixed, which shall accrue to any married woman during ......
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Moody v. Beggs
...Lee, 45 N.J. Eq. 779, 18 A. 854; First Nat. Bank of Albuquerque v. McClellan, 9 N.M. 636, 58 P. 347; Clift v. Moses, 75 Hun, 517; Grabill v. Moyer, 45 Pa. 530; New South Assn. v. Reed, 96 Va. 345, 70 Am. St. 858, 31 S.E. 514; Maxwell v. Hanshaw, 24 Va. 405; Le Saulnier v. Krueger, 85 Wis. 2......
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Rice v. Shipley
...the husband holds the property as trustee for his wife, whether he keeps the money in his pocket or invests it in real estate." [Grabill v. Moyer, 45 Pa. 530; Bergey's 60 Pa. 408.] Such was the vested right and title of Louisa C. Shipley to this money at the time she left Pennsylvania. It w......
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Carter v. Becker
...in the absence of proof that she intended it as a gift to him. (Stickney v. Stickney, 131 U.S. 227, 9 S.Ct. 677, 33 L.Ed. 136; Grabill v. Moyer et al., 45 Pa. 530; Bergey's Appeal, 60 id. 408, 100 Am. Dec. Adoue v. Spencer, 62 N.J.Eq. 782, 49 A. 10, 56 L. R. A. 817, 90 Am. St. Rep. 484; Jon......