Ilfeld v. Baca

• Decision Date: 27 February 1907
• Citation: 14 N.M. 65,89 P. 244
• Parties: ILFELD et al.v.DE BACA et al.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

14 N.M. 65

89 P. 244

ILFELD et al.

v.DE BACA et al.

Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico.

Feb. 27, 1907.

Appeal from District Court, Bernalillo County; before Justice Benjamin H. Baker.

On rehearing. Decree affirmed.

For former opinion, see 79 Pac. 723.

Where a husband acquired certain property belonging to his wife, the value of which he promised to repay her, and thereafter conveyed to her certain land for an express consideration of $2,500, it would be presumed, in the absence of proof to the contrary, that the value of the property of the husband so received, with interest to the date of the conveyances, amounted to the consideration for the deeds.

McMillen & Raynolds, for appellants.

E. W. Dobson and A. B. Renehan, for appellees.

MANN, J.

Upon the former hearing of this case an opinion was rendered, which a careful re-examination convinces us was erroneous. The court was led into these errors by a misconception of the pleadings in the case as they appear in the record before us. It is there said (Ilfeld v. De Baca, 79 Pac. 723): “The only fraud set up in the complaint is that the property described in the deeds was conveyed for an inadequate consideration.” Whereas, in fact the fraud set up in the complaint was that said deeds were wholly without consideration, and were made and accepted with the intent to hinder, delay, and defraud the creditors of Roman A. Baca, the grantor, and that they were shams and the result of a conspiracy upon the part of the grantor and grantee to defraud the creditors of said Roman A. Baca. Nowhere in the complaint, or elsewhere in the record, does it appear that the considerations of $1,500 and $1,000, respectively, stated in the deeds, were inadequate, or that that property conveyed was, at the time of the conveyance, greater in value than the sums stated in the deeds. The complaint itself shows that one of the tracts, and apparently the most valuable one, was at the time of its conveyance to Mrs. Baca an unconfirmed grant, and consequently the interest of Baca in it was unadjudicated and uncertain as to value. The complaint does allege “that all of said real estate above described is well located and well supplied with springs and streams, and well adapted for the pasture of stock, and much of it is underlaid with valuable coal deposits, and is worth, as plaintiffs are informed and believe, from $25,000 to $30,000,” and this statement is not denied by the answer, but it is evident that the pleader referred to the time of the drawing of the bill, which was eight years after the conveyances were made, and which cannot be taken to refer to the value at that time. The fact that the then uncertain interest of Roman A. Baca had since ripened into a title of itself would make a vast difference in the value of what he conveyed, and the alleged discoveries of the coal deposits may, for all that appears in the complaint, have been made after the deeds to Mrs. Baca were executed.

The trial court found that there was no actual fraud, and that the deeds were for an adequate and valuable consideration. True, the finding of the trial court also contains the statement that no evidence of the value of the property at the time of the conveyances was introduced; but this does not necessarily conflict with the finding that the consideration for the deeds was valuable and adequate. These deeds were introduced in evidence as shown by findings No. 3 and 4 asked by plaintiff, and showed a stated consideration of $1,500 and $1,000. It was not claimed that these sums were inadequate, and, in the absence of such a claim, the court had a right to assume that they were in fact the value of the interests conveyed at that time. There was no attempt to dispute the statements of Mrs. Baca as to the fact that her husband had used $600 or $700 of her money, and had received horses, cattle, and mules of her separate property-facts in which she was corroborated by her son and Francisco Chaves; nor...