Pritchard v. Wallace

• Decision Date: 30 April 1857
• Citation: 36 Tenn. 405
• Parties: WILLIAM PRITCHARD et al. v. JOHN WALLACE et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

36 Tenn. 405

WILLIAM PRITCHARD et al.

v.JOHN WALLACE et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

April Term, 1857.

FROM DECATUR.

This bill was filed at Lexington. At the August term, 1856, the cause was heard upon bill, answer, and proofs, by Chancellor Pavatt, who dismissed the bill. The complainants appealed.

M. & H. Brown, for the complainants; Bullock & Scurlock and L. M. Jones, for the defendants.

Caruthers, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This bill is filed to set up a resulting trust in a tract of 1,700 acres of land in Decatur county, upon this state of facts: The complainant, Polly Pritchard, was the daughter of Samuel Smith, of Montgomery county, and, as one of his heirs and distributees, became entitled to a tract of land of some 300 acres in that county, several slaves, and some money. She first married Francis Warden, who died leaving several children, the other complainants in this bill. In the year 1844 or 1845 she intermarried with James Wallace, who died in August, 1852; and in 1853 she married her present husband, William Pritchard. In 1850 Wallace purchased the tract of land in question from Igleheart at $4,000--$2,000 down, and the other in three equal annual payments. The title to the land was taken in his own name, and he settled on it soon after the purchase, and there died, leaving his family in possession.

Recently a proceeding was instituted for a partition of the land among defendants as the collateral heirs, after assigning dower to the widow. Wallace settled the children of his wife, without title, upon various parts of the tract. He left no children at his death, and his widow became entitled to his whole personal estate and dower in the land. It appears that his slaves and other property personal amounted to some $12,000 or $15,000 in value. Some part of the consideration of the land yet remains to be paid.

But these facts do not affect the questions raised by this bill. It is filed to enjoin the partition proceedings, and to have declared her title to the whole tract of land, upon the ground that the money with which the cash payment was made was derived from the sale of her tract of land in Montgomery for $1,100, and the remaining $900 from her father's estate; and that she has paid, or is bound to pay, the other $2,000 out of her own property--that is, the property to which she is entitled by law as the widow of said Wallace. The bill charges that there was an express agreement and positive assurance, on the part of her husband, that the proceeds of her 300 acres of land should be invested in lands for her and her children; and that this was the condition on which she agreed to sell it. It is also charged that the same agreement extended to all moneys derived from her father's estate in her right, and that the $900 came from that source. As to the amount of the last item, and proof is very unsatisfactory and conflicting. The executor of Smith says that he paid him only $200 on that account; but declarations of Wallace are proved, going to show that $1,900, if not the whole of the first or cash payment, was made out of the proceeds of her land and other moneys received from her father's estate. But, in the view we take of the case, it is not at all material how that was as to the amount. Whatever he may have received on that account became his own by virtue of his marital rights; and no trust could be raised against him, no matter what disposition he may have made of it. How that would be in a case where the wife had taken steps to secure her equity to a settlement out of it, or was prevented from doing so by a promise and agreement on the part of the husband to invest it for her benefit, need not now be determined, as no such case is presented in this record. As to that part of the case, then, we consider there is no question. There was no act on her part to be performed to enable him to recover that part of her estate; he had a right to receive it simply as husband, and to deal with it as his own, without her sanction or co-operation, subject alone to an active movement on her part in a court of chancery, to declare the “wife's equity” in her favor. This not having been done, and...