State Bank of West Union v. Keeney

• Decision Date: 16 January 1911
• Citation: 133 S.W. 855,154 Mo. App. 285
• Parties: STATE BANK OF WEST UNION v. KEENEY et al.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

133 S.W. 855

154 Mo. A. 285

STATE BANK OF WEST UNION v. KEENEY et al.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

January 16, 1911.

Rehearing Denied January 30, 1911.

1. FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCES (§ 295)—EVIDENCE —WEIGHT.

The rule that a material fact may be inferred from other evidentiary facts and circumstances, and need not be proved by direct evidence, is peculiarly applicable to proving fraud in a conveyance by a debtor.

2. FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCES (§ 308)—ACTIONS—JURY QUESTIONS.

Where the evidence as to the relationship of the parties, the surrounding circumstances, and the unusual peculiarities of the transaction tends to induce a reasonable person to believe that fraud was the common object of the parties, the question of fraud is for the jury.

3. APPEAL AND ERROR (§ 1001)—FINDINGS— CONCLUSIVENESS.

A finding on an issue of fraud is conclusive on appeal, where the evidence on that question is sufficient to take the case to the jury.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Clay County; Francis H. Trimble, Judge.

Action by the State Bank of West Union against Luther Keeney and another, in which Oscar P. Miller was interpleaded. From a judgment for plaintiff, the interpleader appeals. Affirmed.

Jas. T. Burney, M. E. Lawson, and Reinhardt & Schisby, for appellant. P. C. Young, for respondent.

JOHNSON, J.

This cause was here on a former appeal of the interpleader, and was remanded for a new trial on the ground that the court erred in directing a verdict for the plaintiff. 134 Mo. App. 74, 114 S. W. 553. At the second trial the court submitted issues of fact to the jury, a verdict was returned for the plaintiff, and the interpleader appealed from a judgment rendered in accordance with the verdict.

A statement of the case appears in our former opinion, and to avoid repetition we refer to that statement for an account of the principal facts of the transactions which gave rise to the controversy before us for review. Additional facts and circumstances in the present record relate entirely to an issue not tendered at the former trial, but raised and fiercely contested at the second trial. This new issue involves the bona fides of the note and chattel mortgage under which interpleader claims a lien on the property superior to the lien acquired by plaintiff under the levy of the writ of attachment. Plaintiff adduced no direct evidence of the existence of a common purpose on the part of interpleader and defendants to cheat and defraud the creditors of Luther and Matilda Keeney by means of a fictitious sale of their property to their daughter, and of the execution by the daughter of a fraudulent mortgage to interpleader conveying that property; but we do not entertain the view, pressed by interpleader both in the trial court and here, that the inference of the existence of such fraud is not supported by substantial evidence, but...