Burson v. Andes

8 S.E. 249, 83 Va. 445, 1887 Va. LEXIS 90
Supreme Court of Virginia·Decided June 16, 1887·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

Hinton, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

In appears by the record in this case that, on the sixth •day of September, 1880, M. D. Andes and India A., his wife, executed a deed of trust to one "A. H. Blanchard upon a house and lot in the town of Goodson, Ya., owned by the said India A. Andes as her separate property, the principal if not the only, object of which said deed was to secure the appellant, Z. .L. Burson, against any loss or damage as endorser upon a note of the said M. D. Andes for five hundred dollars. This note was renewed by the bank until the twentieth day of July, 1881, when Burson, instead of having the note renewed, lent Andes the' money with which to pay the note, and took from him a note of M. D. Andes & Co., dated on that day, and payable sixty days after date to the order of said Burson for the same amount of five hundred dollars. On the first day of November, 1881, Burson loaned Andes five hundred dollars more, and received from him the note of M. D. Andes & Co. for the same amount, payable fifteen days from that date to [447] Burson. Afterwards, Andes having failed to pay the sums evidenced by these two last mentioned notes, the trustee, Blanchard, sold the house and lot to Burson, who ivas the highest bidder, for the sum of §1,050. A conveyance was made to him on the third day of March, 1882, and thereupon he appears to have taken possession of the said property. In this state of the case Mrs. Andes, who’ joins her husband with her, as she says “ to conform to the statute in such cases made and provided,” filed her bill, in which she alleges, amongst other things, that she had only consented to execute a deed of trust upon the said property for the specific purpose of securing Burson against any loss or damage by reason of his being security or endorser on the note for five hundred dollars, and for no other purpose; that the deed of trust contained provisions to which she had never assented and which were never brought to her knowledge when she signed it, and that it was not, therefore, binding upon her. She charges that Burson conspired with her husband in making the trust different from the trust they knew she had agreed to execute, and that a fraud was thus practiced upon her which made the said trust deed invalid as to her; that the certificate of the notary who took the acknowledgment is untrue, because the deed was never explained to her by him as the statute requires he should have done, and as he certifies he did, and therefore does not bind her; that if the trust deed was valid at the time of its execution, yet that she could only be held liable for any indebtedness which had been incurred in pursuance of its provisions within the twelve mouths for which it was to ran; and that if she could have been liable in any event for the five hundred dolíais advanced by Burson to her husband to pay his fourth renewed note, that she had been released from such liability by the action of Burson in receiving and accepting the negotiable note for that sum made and executed by M. D. Andes & [448] Co., which did not fall due nor become collectible until fourteen days after the expiration of the time within which all sums secured by the deed were to become payable, to-wit: the period of twelve months from its date. The prayer of the bill was that the trust deed might be set aside and annulled, and the sale and deed made by the trustee to Burson of the house and lot might also be set aside and annulled, and that Burson might be required to-refund the whole amount of rents he had collected for said property, and for general relief. At the hearing the court below decreed in accordance with the prayer of the bill, and from this decree the appellant, Burson, has appealed. In his petition he makes several assignments of error, only three of which, however, seem to me to require-notice. The first of these assignments of error is, that the demurrer to the bill should have been sustained, because where a suit is instituted by a wife for the protection of her separate property against creditors of the husband, the: husband cannot legally be joined as plaintiff, his interest in the case being adverse to that of his wife. And in support of this view he cites 1 Daniel’s Chy. Pr., note 9;. Story’s Eq. PL, § 63; Mitford & Tyler’s Eq. Pl. 123, and note, and Sands’ Suits in Eq. 207. But the obvious reply to this objection is, that no matter what maybe the proper practice, in the absence of any statutory regulation on the subject, that in this case the matter is controlled by the statute which in express terms requires that the husband should be joined with the wife. Acts 1876-7, p. 333. Farley v. Tillar, 81 Va. 275.

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Burson v. Andes, 8 S.E. 249, 83 Va. 445, 1887 Va. LEXIS 90 (Va. 1887).

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