Wooten v. Robins

• Decision Date: 15 January 1900
• Citation: 30 So. 681,128 Ala. 373
• Parties: WOOTEN ET AL. v. ROBINS ET AL. [1]
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

30 So. 681

128 Ala. 373

WOOTEN ET AL. v. ROBINS ET AL. ^[1]

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 15, 1900

Appeal from chancery court, Marengo county; Thomas H. Smith Chancellor.

Action by Robins, Fry & Co. against Council B. Wooten and others. Judgment for plaintiffs. Defendants appeal. Reversed.

W. H Tayloe, Wm. Cunninghame, and Gunter & Gunter, for appellants.

Gregory L. & H. T. Smith, for appellees.

TYSON J.

The bill in this case seeks to have certain deeds declared fraudulent. The complainants' predecessor was a creditor of Council B. Wooten, the alleged fraudulent grantor. The only other creditor which Wooten is shown to have had at the time of the execution of his deeds was one Mrs. Steele. Her debt was evidenced by a promissory note, upon which she had brought suit shortly before the deeds were made by Wooten. It may be conceded, for the purposes of this case, that the debtor Wooten's deeds were fraudulent as against the complainants and Mrs. Steele, his only then existing creditors. After the execution of the several conveyances here assailed. Mrs. Steele reduced her debt to judgment, and accepted in settlement of it a note and mortgage upon the lands, executed by W. A. Wooten, the alleged fraudulent grantee, a portion of which mortgage debt was paid by him and the balance by draft drawn by C. B. Wooten in her favor upon the complainants. This draft was drawn, and paid by the complainants, about two years after the execution of the alleged deeds, and constitutes practically the debt which the complainants seek to enforce by their bill; the debt due them by C. B. Wooten when he executed the deed disposing of the lands having been paid by W. A. Wooten, the alleged fraudulent grantee.

It is not insisted by the complainants in this court that they acquired any of Mrs. Steele's rights which she may have had to have declared the conveyances fraudulent and void. Indeed, if such insistence was made, it could avail them nothing, for the reason that Mrs. Steele ratified the transaction. A short history of the transactions between W A. Wooten and the complainants will suffice to show a confirmation by them of his title to the lands sought to be subjected by the bill. Complainants and their predecessors in business were for many years commission merchants in the city of Mobile. For 20 years Council B. Wooten, the alleged fraudulent grantor, had been doing business with them by borrowing money and obtaining supplies from them for the purpose of making crops upon his plantations, which indebtedness he paid by shipping his cotton crops to them which were sold by them and applied to his indebtedness. At the end of the year 1887 C. B. Wooten was indebted to the complainants in the sum of $11,389.47, a portion of which was secured by a mortgage upon the lands here sought to be condemned. On the 17th day of February, 1888, one month and three days after the execution of the deeds by C. B. Wooten to Shade Wooten, and some two months prior to the execution of the deed by Shade Wooten to W. A. Wooten, the account of C. B. Wooten was closed, and the balance ($11,389.47) was paid by charging $6,011.34 to the account of W. A. Wooten, and the balance complainants took his and C. B. Wooten's note for, due November 17, 1888, reciting in the note that "it is agreed that when this note is paid it shall be placed as a credit on a mortgage debt still due Robins, Burgess & Co. by C. B. Wooten." The complainants, instead of making advances to C. B. Wooten for the years 1888 and 1889 for the purpose of making crops upon these lands, made them to W. A. Wooten, he shipping them the crops raised by him for the purpose of paying the advances and the $6,000 which had been charged to him as a part of C. B.'s indebtedness to them; and in the spring of 1890 he paid to them the balance due for advances, etc., for the previous years, discharging his entire debt. Also on May 17, 1890, C. W. Hooper & Co. paid to the complainants the note which was to go as a credit upon the mortgage debt, and on December 11, 1890, W. A. Wooten paid to Hooper & Co. this note and had the mortgage transferred to him. The evidence discloses without conflict that complainants, at the time they paid the draft of C. B. Wooten to Mrs. Steele in 1890, knew that W. A. Wooten claimed to own these lands, and also at the time that they received from Hooper & Co. the payment of his note, to say nothing of the almost irresistible conclusion that they had knowledge that he was to become the owner of the lands at the time that he assumed C. B. Wooten's indebtedness to them in February, 1888, and had actual knowledge that he had so acquired title during the year 1888, after which they received the cotton crops raised upon them during the years 1888 and 1889, a part of which went to pay and discharge a portion of the $6,000 charged to him. It is true that Fry, the main witness for complainants, does testify that he...