Hyatt v. Zion

• Decision Date: 23 June 1904
• Citation: 102 Va. 909,48 S.E. 1
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: HYATT v. ZION et al.

48 S.E. 1

102 Va. 909

HYATT

v.ZION et al.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

June 23, 1904.

DEED OF TRUST—EXECUTION BY WIFE—MISREPRESENTATION OF HUSBAND — ESTOPPEL — BIGHTS OF BENEFICIARY—CONSIDERATION— AGENCY.

1. Where complainant's husband, in order to secure a debt which he owed to a bank, induced complainant to sign a deed of trust on certain land owned by them jointly, the husband in such transaction did not act as agent of the bank, so as to charge it with his false representations made to induce her to sign the deed.

2. Where a bank, on the faith of a deed of trust executed by its debtor and his wife to secure a debt, extended further time to the husband, took a note without an indorser, and surrendered notes on which it claimed and believed that another was liable as indorser, the bank parted with a sufficient consideration to entitle it to claim that the debtor's wife was estopped to have the deed set aside on the ground that she had been induced to sign the same without reading it by the false representation of her husband that it related to property in which she had no interest except a contingent right of dower.

3. Where a wife signed a deed of trust without reading it, relying on her husband's false representation that it related to property in which she had no interest other than a contingent right of dower, she was estopped to deny the validity of the deed as against the beneficiary.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lee County.

Bill by one Zion and others against one Hyatt, as trustee, to set aside a deed of trust. From a decree in favor of complainants, defendant appeals. Reversed.

Irvine & Kemp and L. T. Hyatt, for appellant.

J. C. Noel and E. M. Fulton, for appellees.

BUCHANAN, J. The object of this suit, which was instituted by the appellee, Mrs. Zion, was to have set aside, so far as it affected her interests, a deed of trust executed by her and her husband, conveying a tract of land owned jointly by them, to secure the payment of a negotiable note made by her husband and held by the Pennington Gap Bank. The ground upon which she sought to have it set aside was the fraud of her husband in procuring her signature to, and her acknowledgment of, the deed of trust

It clearly appears from the record that Mrs. Zion was induced by her husband to sign and acknowledge the deed of trust without reading or having it read by his false and fraudulent representation that the conveyance executed by her related to a wholly different subject-matter—one in which she had no interest except a contingent right of dower. It further appears that the husband had been for some years prior thereto borrowing money from the said bank upon notes made by himself, and bearing the indorsement, "R. E. Litton, " a brother of Mrs. Zion. In October, 1901, upon the maturity of two notes aggregating $1,625, the husband renewed the notes for 90 days; giving, as usual, notes which bore the indorsement, "R. E. Litton." In November following, Litton, upon inquiry at the bank, was informed that Zion, the husband, was indebted to the bank in the sum of $1,625, evidenced by two notes, and that he (Litton) was indorser thereon. Litton thereupon denied his liability, claiming that his signatures were forgeries; but upon leaving the bank he requested it to let the matter rest until Zion, the maker, who was absent from home, returned, when he (Litton) would see him, and try to have it straightened out. When Zion returned he undertook, it seems, to get two others to unite, with Litton in indorsing a note in renewal of the notes held by the bank, but in this he failed, whereupon Litton wrote the bank to take a deed of trust on Zion's property, which was afterwards conveyed by the deed of trust. The next day, or very shortly after that suggestion was...