Nunnally v. Stokes

• Decision Date: 11 June 1914
• Citation: 82 S.E. 79,116 Va. 472
• Parties: NUNNALLY. v. STOKES et al.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

82 S.E. 79

(116 Va. 472)

NUNNALLY.

v.STOKES et al.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

June 11, 1914.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lunenburg County.

Action by one Nunnally against one Stokes and others to set aside a deed of complainant's life estate in land assigned to her as dower. Judgment for defendants, and complainant appeals. Affirmed.

Buford, Lewis & Peterson, of Lawrenceville, and Henry E. Lee, of Crewe, for appellant.

Geo. E. Allen, of Victoria, for appellees.

BUCHANAN, J. The object of this suit, which was brought by the appellant, was to have declared null and void a deed executed by her conveying to the appellee Stokes her life estate in a tract of land which had been assigned her as dower in her late husband's estate.

A demurrer to the bill was sustained, and a decree entered dismissing it. From that decree this appeal was granted.

One of the grounds of demurrer assigned was that the bill showed that the deed sought to be declared null and void was executed for the purpose of avoiding the payment of a debt which the appellant thought was a valid claim against her.

It is not controverted by her counsel that, while creditors may set aside a conveyance made to avoid the payment of debts due them, the general rule is that such a conveyance is valid between the parties. The grounds upon which the appellant seeks to escape that rule of law are that when she made the conveyance she was not Indebted to my one, and that the debt which the conveyance was made to avoid the payment of was a debt due from her husband's estate, and not from her; that she was an ignorant woman, a widow living at the home of the appellee Stokes, who was her brother-in-law; that he and appellee Arvin, who afterwards became interested in the land, falsely and fraudulently represented to her that the said debt was her debt, and that the only way for her to prevent her interest in said land from being sold for its payment was to convey it to Stokes for a nominal consideration, none of which was paid or to be paid, and that he would afterwards reconvey the same to her; that she was ignorant and inferior in mental capacity to her said brother-in-law; that his purpose in falsely representing that the debt in question was her debt, when he knew it was a debt due from her husband's estate, and in advising and persuading her to make the conveyance, was to defraud her of her interest in the land conveyed; and that she never of her own free will undertook to avoid the payment of any debt or to perpetrate a fraud upon any one.

While the bill charges that the appellant was mentally inferior to her grantee, Stokes, it is not alleged, nor is it pretended, that she did not have sufficient capacity to make a valid contract. It is well settled that where both parties are legally capable of making contracts, although one may be much superior in mental capacity to the other, that circumstance does not take the case out of the general rule, unless it appears that some advantage was taken or undue influence exerted to obtain...