Lawrence v. Williams

• Decision Date: 23 January 1913
• Citation: 60 So. 889,179 Ala. 596
• Parties: LAWRENCE v. WILLIAMS.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

60 So. 889

179 Ala. 596

LAWRENCE v. WILLIAMS.

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 23, 1913

Rehearing Denied Feb. 14, 1913.

Appeal from Tuscaloosa County Court; Henry B. Foster, Judge.

Ejectment by J. J. Williams against W. W. Lawrence. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

The following is the agreed statement of fact: "It is agreed that J. J. Williams, plaintiff in this case, was the owner of the lands in question at the time of the issuance of an execution against him out of the Tuscaloosa county court, and that these lands were sold under the execution and were bought at execution sale by W. D. Seed, and that said execution sale was regular in all respects; the title to the lands passing to W. D. Seed. It is further agreed that W. D Seed and wife, the grantee in the aforesaid deed, executed and delivered to J. J. Williams, plaintiff, a deed to the lands in suit, and that on the following morning, after the execution and delivery of said deed to said J. J. Williams upon the suggestion of J. J. Williams, the plaintiff, said W D. Seed erased from the deed the name of J. J. Williams as grantee, and substituted therefor the name of Chas. S Williams; that J. J. Williams stated at the time that he was expecting further litigation which might result in a judgment against him for costs, and that he wanted the deed made to his son, Chas. S. Williams, in order that the lands could not be made liable for his debts. The original deed from said W. D. Seed to J. J. Williams, as changed, is placed in the record, marked 'Exhibit A,' for the inspection of the court. This deed, with the name of the grantee changed from J. J. Williams to Chas. S. Williams, was filed for record on November 29, 1906, in the office of the judge of probate of Tuscaloosa county, Ala., recorded in Deed Book 57, p. 443. Chas. S. Williams went immediately into possession of the land and lived thereon and assessed and paid taxes on the same up until the time that he sold and conveyed it by quitclaim deed to Wilbur Lawrence, the defendant in this suit, as is shown by the original deed attached hereto, for the inspection of the court, and marked 'Exhibit B,' and that thereupon the said Wilbur Lawrence went into possession of said land and has been in the continuous, actual possession of the same from that time up until the present time. It is further agreed for the purpose of this suit that the permanent improvements made by defendant on the land in question are equal in value to the rents claimed by plaintiff."

Oliver, Verner & Rice and H. L. Smith, all of Tuscaloosa, for appellant.

Daniel Collier, of Tuscaloosa, for appellee.

MAYFIELD J.

This is a statutory action in the nature of ejectment, brought by the appellee against the appellant. The trial was had on an agreed statement of facts, which the reporter will set out.

The trial court gave the affirmative charge for plaintiff (appellee here) and refused a like charge to the defendant.

We are of the opinion that the trial court erred in so directing a verdict for the plaintiff. In so doing the trial court has unwittingly aided plaintiff in perpetrating a fraud upon his creditors, and the purchasers of this land.

Courts will never lend their aid to any person to take advantage of his own wrong. If by actual, positive, and confessed fraud (such as is admitted in the agreed statement of facts in this case) one ostensibly parts with the legal title to land, and in law and in fact parts with the possession of such land with the intention and for the express purpose of defrauding his creditors and subsequent purchasers of the land from the person whom he had so placed in possession as the ostensible owner, neither courts of law nor of equity will lend to him a listening ear or a helping hand to restore him to the possession of the land which he parted with for such fraudulent purposes.

The trial court evidently went upon the theory that the legal title was in Williams, and that in an action of ejectment that title must prevail, and that if the defendant was entitled to any relief it was in other actions or in other courts; that the defendant's defense, if any he had, was an equitable estoppel--which is not availing in this state as a defense to an action of ejectment which can be brought only in a court of law. If this was all there was in the case, the trial court would have been eminently correct. Nothing is better settled in this state than the proposition that purely equitable defenses or equitable titles are not availing in courts of law in actions of ejectment or in statutory actions in the nature thereof.

This principle, however, if involved in this case, was not all there was in it.

The burden of proof was on the plaintiff, and the proving of his title as against this defendant involved the proving of an actual, palpable, and intended fraud against the creditors of plaintiff and the purchasers of this land, to which latter class the defendant belongs.

Courts of law, in actions of ejectment, will not thus allow a plaintiff to stultify himself by proving his own actual and intended fraud to deprive innocent purchasers of their title or possession. The truth, in law and in fact, is that the plaintiff showed no title, for the reason that what he showed was such an actual and palpable fraud that it falls within the category of conveyances pronounced by the law absolutely void, whether tested in a court of law or of equity. The agreed statement of facts recites, in effect if not in terms, that the conveyance was made with the intent to defraud the plaintiff's creditors. This being true, it was absolutely void and would be so pronounced by a court of law or of equity, except as between the parties to it; and between them, for the reason that they will not be allowed in the courts to set up or prove their own perfidy.

The effect, in law, of the conveyance of Seed to the plaintiff in this case, is exactly what it would have been if there had been no interlineations or changes in the name of the grantee, and the plaintiff had then and there conveyed to his son with the express purpose of defrauding his creditors. If this had been done, no one would contend that plaintiff could recover in this action. The question presented to the trial court and to this court is: Will the plaintiff be allowed to avoid the result, by having the grantor to...