Smith v. Riggs
| Decision Date | 20 June 1881 |
| Citation | 8 N.W. 479,56 Iowa 488 |
| Parties | SMITH v. RIGGS ET AL |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Mahaska District Court.
THE defendants recovered a judgment against A. M. Saunders caused an execution to issue and were about to sell certain real estate belonging to the plaintiff, as he claims, and asked that an injunction issue restraining the sale. The decree was for the plaintiff and the defendants appeal.
AFFIRMED.
Lafferty & Johnson and Bolton & McCoy, for appellants.
M. E Cutts and C. P. Searle, for appellee.
We find the facts to be that the wife of A. M. Saunders is the daughter of Thomas Thornburg, and that previous to 1874 Thornburg let Saunders have about $ 2,500 in money, for which Saunders gave his notes. It was in the power of Thornburg to have enforced the payment of the notes at any time, and we find said indebtedness cannot be regarded as an advancement but that the relation of debtor and creditor existed between Thornburg and Saunders.
In 1874 Saunders owned the real estate in controversy and was indebted to the defendants and others. Thornburg knew of at least a portion of said indebtedness, and was apprehensive the creditors of Saunders would seize the real estate, appropriate the same to the payment of their debts, and thus deprive his daughter of a comfortable support. He proposed to Saunders he would give up said notes and cancel the indebtedness and if he, Saunders, would convey to him the real estate that he would convey the same to Mrs. Saunders as an advancement or gift. This was agreed to and the arrangement perfected.
Afterward the defendants recovered judgment against Saunders and afterward Mrs. Saunders and her husband conveyed the real estate to the plaintiff, who had knowledge of the transaction between Saunders and Thornburg.
There is no pretence the plaintiff did not pay the full value of the real estate at the time he purchased. Nor is it claimed the indebtedness from Saunders to Thornburg was not equal to the value of said real estate. After the conveyance to Mrs. Saunders her husband managed and controlled the real estate as he had done before that time.
The defendants insist the transaction which resulted in the conveyance to Mrs. Saunders is fraudulent and void because made to hinder and delay creditors. Counsel for the appellants do not controvert the proposition that the diligent creditor has the right to secure himself, although the intent of the debtor may have been to hinder and delay his creditors, or that such is the result of the transaction, but they insist such rule has no application because the conveyance to Thornburg was coupled with the condition or "secret trust as a cover" that he should convey to Mrs. Saunders, and that the transaction as a whole was beneficial to Saunders, was so intended, and that he thereby obtained in the real estate a homestead right of which he could not be deprived without his consent, and that by the conveyance he acquired an inchoate right of dower.
In support of their proposition counsel cite and largely rely on Kissam v. Edmondston et al., 36 N.C. 180, 1 Ired Eq. 180. There is, we think, a clear distinction between the case cited and that at bar. In the former the debtor insisted against the earnest protest of the creditor that one half of the amount due should be secured to the wife and children of the debtor. The provision made was not accomplished because the creditor bestowed upon the wife of the debtor a bounty, but it was done because the debtor so insisted and refused to secure any portion of the debt unless such provision was made. The creditor consented only for the reason he could not otherwise secure any portion of his debt. The opinion concedes that the creditor may give his property or debt to whom he pleases, and if the provision made for the wife and children of the debtor had been made by the creditor and was a gift or bounty freely bestowed by him that such transaction would not...
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