Humphrey v. Copeland
| Decision Date | 31 July 1875 |
| Citation | 54 Ga. 543 |
| Parties | Noel Humphrey, plaintiff in error. v. Della C. Copeland, by next friend, defendant in error. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Husband and wife. Debtor and creditor. Judgments. Judicial sale. Notice. Before Judge Pottle. Hancock Superior Court. October Term, 1874.
Reported in the opinion.
C. S. DuBose; C. W. DuBose, for plaintiff in error.
Miles W. Lewis; Orr & Lewis, for defendant.
Copeland is but a nominal defendant in the bill. The real defendant is Humphrey. The complainant is Mrs. Copeland, *wife of Copeland; and the object of the bill is to reclaim from Humphrey a sum of money which her husband paid to him out of her separate estate. Humphrey, the defendant, sold to complainant's husband some land, and, at the same time, some personal property, taking his notes separately for each, and giving bond to make titles to him for the land on payment for it in full. Shortly afterwards, one of the notes covering the price of the land was partially paid in money. This is the money to which the complainant asserts title, and which she seeks to recover by the present bill. The land went into Copeland's possession, and no other payment on the purchase was ever made. The notes given for the personal property were reduced to judgments, and under these the land was seized and sold by the sheriff, as the property of Copeland, Humphrey having first made and had recorded a deed conveying to him the land in fee. At this sale Humphrey was the purchaser, the price bid being about the amount of the judgments. Litigation then arose between Humphrey and Copeland touching the possession, and suit was also instituted by the former against the latter on the notes for the unpaid purchase money. A settlement ensued which disposed of the whole controversy. Copeland acknowledged Humphrey as landlord; agreed to pay him one year's rent, besides certain expenses connected with the legal proceedings; and Humphrey surrendered to him the notes for the unpaid purchase money. Humphrey then sold the land to a third person for the same price which Copeland had agreed originally to pay for it. After all these events had occurred, Mrs. Copeland, the complainant, brought this bill, praying that her husband and Humphrey might be compelled to interplead; that Humphrey might be decreed to repay to her the money he had received from her husband, being, as she alleged, her separate estate; and for gen-eral relief. On the trial, there was evidence showing that the money, at the time it was paid to Humphrey was what the complainant alleged it to be, her own. There was also evidence tending to charge Humphrey with notice of that fact. Otherevidence tendered to negative notice of the fact at that time, as to *a part of the money, at least; and the decree went against him for all of it.
1. The law applicable to the case is contained in sections 1783 and 1785 of the Code, taken in connection with the established and well known rule, that one who receives money bona tide, for value, without notice of any defect in the title, is protected. One of these sections of the Code makes void a sale of the wife's separate estate to the husband's creditor, in extinguishment of the debt; and the other declares invalid any sale by her to the husband, made without sanction of the proper court. Money is clearly within the reason and spirit of these restrictions upon the wife's power. Although the word sale does not, in the letter, comprehend a transaction in which money alone passes, yet, the transaction itself, with respect to its effect on the wife's fortune, would be the same; and that is the thing to be regarded. The true genius of the law, whatever may be thought to the contrary, is to quibble as little as possible on words, and go directly to the substance. It is true, that for the sake of certainty, it is necessary in construing statutes, to be somewhat critical in the examination of language, but when the object and purpose of the law are free from all doubt, to sacrifice them to avoid slight verbal difficulties would be to bring back the scholastic trifling of the middle ages. What the Code has in view is to protect the wife's separate estate against the husband and his creditors, not simply to screen it when it is in the form of property, leaving it exposed when it takes the form of money. Payment by the wife of her husband's debt, whether made in money or other effects belonging to her, is void if the creditor have notice of her title. He acquires nothing and she loses nothing. And the same rule applies where, with like notice to the creditor, the payment is made by the husband with her money, whether she consents to it or not. Under...
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Thompson v. Wright
...that money belonging to the wife and paid by her in extinguishment of her husband's debt was a sale of her separate estate. Humphrey v. Copeland, 54 Ga. 543. It is there stated that "the Code, in declaring a sale void when made by the wife to a creditor of the husband in payment of his debt......
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Bradford v. State
...making a judgment call here, seemingly we must "quibble as little as possible on words, and go directly to the substance." Humphrey v. Copeland, 54 Ga. 543 (1875). There is enough substance here; therefore, the judgment should be Judgment affirmed. BIRDSONG, C.J., and McMURRAY and BANKE, P.......
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Farmers' State Bank v. Kelley
...debt, she would not be estopped from asserting title to it by having joined with her husband in its assignment to the bank. Humphrey v. Copeland, 54 Ga. 543; Chappell Boyd, 61 Ga. 662; Windsor v. Bell, 61 Ga. 671 (1); Grant v. Miller, 107 Ga. 804, 806, 33 S.E. 671. Accordingly the petition ......
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McRitchie v. Atlanta Trust Co.
...in payment of his debt, comprehends, in its reason and spirit, a transaction in money, as well as atransaction in property." Humphrey v. Copeland, 54 Ga. 543(1). The ruling in the case just cited has been followed in other decisions of this court. Boyd v. Chappell, 56 Ga. 22; Kent v. Plumb,......