Muir v. Miller

• Decision Date: 11 October 1897
• Parties: MUIR v. MILLER ET UX.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

103 Iowa 127

72 N.W. 409

MUIR

v.MILLER ET UX.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 11, 1897.

Appeal from district court, Van Buren county; M. A. Roberts, Judge.

Garnishment proceedings, commenced as at law, and subsequently transferred to the equity docket. There was a hearing on the merits, and a decree, from which the plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.Wherry & Walker, for appellant.

Mitchell & Sloan, for appellees.

ROBINSON, J.

In October, 1888, the plaintiff, as administrator of the estate of S. J. Miller, deceased, recovered in the Van Buren district court judgment against the defendant M. J. Miller for the sum of $2,227.12, with interest and costs. In July, 1891, a general execution was issued on the judgment, and the defendant Ellen L. Miller was garnished as a supposed debtor of the defendant M. J. Miller, and her answers were taken by a commissioner appointed by the court. The answers thus taken showed that M. J. Miller was the husband of the garnishee, and that she held and claimed to own a note made to her by one Thomas McAllister on the 17th day of January, 1888, for the sum of $2,000, with interest thereon at the rate of 8 per cent. per annum, on which interest for three years had been paid. That note was given in lieu of one which had been made by McAllister to S. J. Miller, the plaintiff's intestate, and which the garnishee claims was transferred by him to her husband. The answers of the garnishee further state that her husband surrendered that note, and caused the note she holds to be made for it in part payment of a note which he was owing to her. To the answers of the garnishee the plaintiff filed a pleading in which he alleged that the surrender of the original McAllister note, and the taking of a new one in lieu thereof, payable to the garnishee, was fraudulent, and for the purpose of aiding M. J. Miller to cheat and defraud his creditors, and that he is insolvent. To that pleading the garnishee filed a reply, in which she asserted that she was the absolute owner of the McAllister note, and denied the plaintiff's allegations of fraud. The reply further pleaded an adjudication of the ownership of the note in her favor by the circuit court of Scotland county, in the state of Missouri. When the pleadings had been filed, the cause was transferred to the equity docket, as already stated. The district court found and adjudged that the plea of former adjudication was not sustained, that the transfer to the garnishee by her husband of a note made by one Fatherson was not for a valuable consideration, and in good faith, but that the transfer of the McAllister note was valid, and invested the garnishee with the ownership thereof. Judgment for the amount of the Fatherson note and one-half the costs was rendered against the garnishee in favor of the plaintiff. Since the garnishee does not appeal, it is not necessary to review the action of the district court so far as it related to the Fatherson note.

1. In the year 1885, S. J. Miller, the father of the defendant M. J. Miller, died intestate, and the plaintiff was appointed and qualified as administrator of his estate. Soon after the appointment of the plaintiff as stated, he commenced this action against M. J. Miller, claiming that in October, 1884, the decedent was feeble in body and mind, and incapable of transacting business of any importance, especially that of dividing or giving away his property; that in the month specified, and while the decedent was in the condition stated, M. J. Miller, by taking advantage of that condition, wrongfully obtained from the decedent, through persuasion and undue influence, money, promissory notes, mortgages, accounts, and securities of the aggregate value of $6,439.50. Judgment for the possession of the property, or, if it could not be found, for its value, was demanded. The cause was tried to a jury in the year 1886, and a verdict for $7,222.25 was returned in favor of the...