Lippman v. Boals

• Decision Date: 30 April 1883
• Citation: 79 Tenn. 489
• Parties: Nannie Lippman v. J. C. Boals et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

79 Tenn. 489

Nannie Lippman

v.J. C. Boals et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April Term, 1883.

FROM TIPTON.

Appeal from the Chancery Court at Covington. H. J. LIVINGSTON, Ch.

SIMONTON, YOUNG & BLACKWELL for Complainant.

HUMES & POSTON and SMITH & LAUDERDALE for Defendants.

FREEMAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

In 1874, complainant and Alexander Lippman, in contemplation of marriage, entered into a marriage contract, by which certain real estate, together with a number of notes and evidences of debt due to Alexander Lippman, were transferred and conveyed to Jno. W. Calhoun, of Tipton county, Tennessee. The real estate is specifically described, and likewise the notes and evidence of debt, amount and date when due, together with the name of the parties owing said debts.

The main question in the case depends on the true construction of the contract, and grows out of the following alleged state of facts: The husband after the marriage, assigned a portion of the notes to a firm in Memphis, in payment of debts due by him, averred to have been contracted after the contract--at any rate, not to have been a charge in any way on these notes or property held by the husband at the date of the marriage. The defendants, purchasers, are charged to have had actual notice of the settlement, and as the notes are specifically described were put on inquiry, at least as to these notes, and therefore took subject to the provisions of the contract. The bill having been demurred to, these facts are substantially stated and admitted.

This bill is brought by Mrs. Lippman, after the death of her husband, to have an account of the proceeds of these notes, so far as collected by the assignees, and to reach some of the evidences of debt remaining intact in Tipton county, in the form of a judgment perhaps.

The stipulations of the contract, so far as necessary to the decision of this case, are as follows:

It is first agreed that the property should “remain at the absolute disposal of said Lippman until the solemnization of the intended marriage.”

It is then added: “But this conveyance is made in trust for the following uses and purposes herein declared and set forth, and no other, that is to say, the said Calhoun, trustee, shall permit the said Lippman and wife to have and hold the undisturbed and peaceable possession, use and enjoyment of said property during their natural lives, or during the continuance of the marriage between them, without molestation or interference of any kind, and in case of the death of said Lippman, in the lifetime of the wife, or dissolution of the marriage, the said Calhoun is to convey to the...