Hedge v. Glenny

• Decision Date: 16 October 1888
• Citation: 75 Iowa 513,39 N.W. 818
• Parties: HEDGE ET AL. v. GLENNY ET UX.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

75 Iowa 513

39 N.W. 818

HEDGE ET AL.

v.GLENNY ET UX.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

October 16, 1888.

Appeal from district court, Monroe county; DELL STUART, Judge.

Action in equity to subject certain real estate, the title to which is in the defendant Mary Glenny, to the payment of a judgment against the defendant William H. Glenny, on the alleged ground that the property was conveyed to Mary Glenny in fraud of the creditors of William H. Glenny, who is her husband. There was a decree in the court below dismissing the petition, and the plaintiffs appeal.T. B. Perry, for appellants.

W. A. Nichol, for appellees.

ROTHROCK, J., ( after stating the facts as above.)

The property in question consists of a dwelling-house and lot, which was purchased by the defendants in March, 1886, and the title was taken, and is now held, by Mary Glenny. The burden of proof was on the plaintiffs to show that she was not the real owner, but that the consideration for the property moved from her husband. The court below was of the opinion that the plaintiffs failed to make the necessary proof, and a careful examination of the evidence has led us to the same conclusion. It appears from the evidence that the wife kept boarders during the absence of her husband, in the war of the Rebellion; and that, after hostilities ceased, the husband was kept in the service, in the medical department, at Vicksburg, Miss., and that the wife joined him at that place, and kept a boarding-house there. She accumulated some money in this business, which seems to have been a separate employment, independent of her duties as a wife. She loaned this money to her husband, and he afterwards repaid it, by furnishing the money with which the property was purchased. We have given attention to the argument of counsel as to the improbability of the account given of these transactions by the defendants as witnesses. As the plaintiffs attack the title, the burden is upon them to show that it is fraudulent; and this cannot be done by mere inference, based upon assumption that the defendants' testimony is untruthful.

It is claimed that the keeping of boarders by the wife was not such a business, independent of her duties as a wife, as authorized her to hold the proceeds of her employment as her own. We think otherwise. We have held that a wife who followed the business of a washerwoman on her own account, and from which she received compensation from her employers, and controlled and expended her...