Peterson v. Williamson
| Decision Date | 30 June 1830 |
| Citation | 13 N.C. 326 |
| Parties | SARAH PETERSON v. GEORGE WILLIAMSON. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
FROM CASWELL.
1. The proviso in the act of 1820 (Rev., ch. 1055) extends not only to gifts void by the act of 1806 (Rev., ch. 701), but also to those which are void by the act of 1784 (Rev., ch. 225).
2. Where a parent before the year 1806, being unembarrassed, made a parol gift of a slave to a child, and the child and slave resided in the family of the parent—held that the gift was void as to creditors of the parent, whose debts were contracted twenty years afterwards.
3. The gift is so absolutely void against purchasers and creditors that an open and notorious adverse possession by the child, together with perfect bona fides in both the parties, cannot validate it against creditors of the donor, without respect to the time when their rights accrued.
Per RUFFIN, Judge.—The construction of the act of 1784 (Rev., ch. 225), by which parol gifts of slaves were held to be valid between the parties, but void as to purchasers and creditors, was founded in error, but has prevailed so long as to be beyond the reach of judicial correction.
DETINUE for a female slave, Hannah, and her four children. The defendant pleaded the general issue, and on the trial before his Honor, Judge DONNELL, it appeared that in 1801 James Peterson, the father of
the plaintiff, made a parol gift of the slave Hannah to her—the slave being then only a few days old, and the plaintiff a child aged fifteen years; that the father at the time of the gift owned one other slave, the mother of Hannah; was then unembarrassed, and so continued until 1820; since then he had been gradually failing, and had become wholly insolvent. At October term, 1828, of Caswell County Court, judgments to an amount greater than the whole of James Peterson's estate were entered up against him, upon which executions issued to the defendant, the sheriff of Caswell, who seized and sold the slaves mentioned in the declaration. It was in proof that Hannah and her children, as they were successively born, lived in thefamily of Peterson, the father, and worked as the other negroes belonging to him did. There was also evidence that the plaintiff exercised control over them.
In the Court below it was insisted for the plaintiff that her possession under the act of 1820 (Rev., ch. 1055), gave her an indefeasible title.
His Honor instructed the jury that the parol gift under which the plaintiff claimed was void as to the creditors of Peterson, the donor, and their rights not having accrued until the levy under the execution issued in the year 1828, and the defendant being clothed with all the rights of the plaintiff in these executions, the present was not a case in which the act of 1820 would have availed the plaintiff had she been defendant in an action claiming under that parol gift, and therefore was not within the operation of that act, regarding either its words or the spirit of the enacting clause, or the proviso.
A verdict was returned for the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed.
The propriety of the instructions depends altogether upon the correctness of the assumption that the gift, being by parol, was void as against the creditors who had executions. For nothing can be more certain than that the statute of limitations cannot run until the right hath accrued or the action arisen. I do not speak of the gift being fraudulent within the statute of 13 Eliz. It is indeed plainly so; for it is past my conception how a father, although not indebted at the time, nor for a long time after, can honestly give an infant child, living with him, a slave a few days old, and honestly keep thepossession of the slave, using her as his own, supporting her and several of her children through the long period of twenty-seven years, eight of which were those of pecuniary embarrassment, which ended in insolvency. Such a possession was so manifestly deceptive to the
world as to be covenous and fraudulent as to his creditors. If it be said that it is doubtful whether the father or the daughter had the possession, that doubt is a fraud upon the donor's creditors; to which I should think it hard to make a jury shut their eyes. The donee ought to have a clear, separate, and unequivocal possession, so that nobody could be either deceived or mistaken.
But the Court took the point out of the case by informing the jury that the gift was void because it was by parol. So that we are to view the case as if the daughter had such an exclusive possession as would indicate a bona fide gift. I confess that the best convictions of my understanding are opposed to the position, and that it is revolting to my feelings. Yet under the construction put upon our act of 1784 (Rev., ch. 225, sec. 7) I believe the Judge was right. I have not a doubt that the act was intended to be one of frauds and perjuries, and to declare that all conveyances of slaves, whether voluntary or for value, should be void to all intents and purposes. It, unfortunately, did not get that meaning put on it at first; and conveyances by parol were held to be good between the parties. This has often been since lamented by several able judges; and the legislature has by successive acts attempted to correct it. The omnipotent one of 1806 goes to the root of the evil, as far as relates to gifts of slaves; and that of 1819 (Rev., ch. 1016) was probably intended to embrace sales, though its words extend only to contracts to sell. One error naturally leads to another. When the...
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