Payne v. Fraley

• Decision Date: 19 November 1901
• Parties: PAYNE et al. v. FRALEY et ux.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

65 S.W. 292

165 Mo. 191

PAYNE et al. v. FRALEY et ux.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

November 19, 1901.

HOMESTEAD — LIABILITY TO EXECUTION — FILING DEED FOR RECORD — NECESSITY.

Under a statute (Rev. St. 1899, § 3622) providing that the homestead shall be subject to execution on all causes of action existing when it was acquired, except as therein otherwise provided, "and for this purpose such time shall be the date of the filing in the proper office for the record of deeds, the deed of such homestead, when the party holds title under a deed," a homestead is subject to execution on a cause of action accruing after the head of the family has moved on and occupied the land as his home, but before his homesteader's deed has been filed for record.

Appeal from circuit court, Oregon county; W. N. Evans, Judge.

Suit by W. H. Payne and others against W. H. Fraley and wife. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

A. H. Livingston, for appellants. A. P. Couch, for respondents.

ROBINSON, J.

This is a proceeding by plaintiffs, as execution creditors of the defendant W. H. Fraley, to have declared fraudulent and void as against them a certain deed conveying the property therein named to Susan M. Fraley, the wife of and codefendant with said W. H. Fraley, and that same be ordered sold for the satisfaction of their judgment and execution against said W. H. Fraley. To the petition filed defendants answered, denying the allegations thereof, and setting up that the land was exempt from execution under the homestead laws of this state. It is upon the question alone of defendants' rights under the statutes concerning homesteads that this appeal is prosecuted. The facts that were undisputed at the trial are that the defendant W. H. Fraley purchased the lots in controversy on September 22, 1888, of one George W. Nettleton, taking a written contract for a deed on payment of $105, the purchase price thereof; that shortly thereafter he paid Nettleton for said lots, and at once built a dwelling house thereon, worth $600 or $800, in which he with his family have ever since lived and occupied as their only home; that on October 25, 1893, said W. H. Fraley assigned said written contract with said George W. Nettleton to his wife, Susan M. Fraley, for the expressed consideration of $1, but in fact without any consideration being paid therefor, and that on same day said Nettleton made and executed and delivered to defendants a deed conveying the lots named in said contract to the defendant Susan M. Fraley, and same was afterward, on November 14, 1893, placed of record in...