Davis v. Southern Distributing Co.

139 S.E. 495, 148 Va. 779, 1927 Va. LEXIS 277
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedSeptember 29, 1927
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 139 S.E. 495 (Davis v. Southern Distributing Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. Southern Distributing Co., 139 S.E. 495, 148 Va. 779, 1927 Va. LEXIS 277 (Va. 1927).

Opinions

McLemore, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Appeal from a final decree of the Circuit Court of Lunenburg county.

This suit is the result of a certain deed executed by C. T. Davis, the husband of Fannie A. Davis, the wife, on December 8, 1921, in which he conveyed a tract of land containing seventy-two acres in Lunenburg county in consideration of $1,000.00. At the time of this conveyance and for some considerable time prior thereto, he was indebted to certain of the complainants in the court below (who will be referred to as they were in [782]*782that court), some of whom had been requesting payment before the deed of December 8, 1921, was drawn and executed.

As soon after this deed was placed on record as was practicable, complainants reduced their debts to judgments and at the first June rules, 1922, filed their bill to have declared fraudulent and void the deed from C. T. Davis to his wife, and to subject the land to the payment of complainants’ debts. Depositions were taken and on December 11, 1925, a decree in accordance with the prayer of the bill declaring the deed of December 8, 1921, void and of no effect as to complainants, and directing certain enquiries to be made by a commissioner prior to á sale of the property.

Appellants base their defence upon two grounds, assigned as error:

“First, because the deed is not fraudulent and voluntary, but is based upon a good, valid and subsisting consideration in law—-namely, debts due petitioner by her husband, C. T. Davis, which he promised to pay at the time same were contracted and which he owed her at the time the deed was made, which money loaned him by petitioner was the separate estate of Fannie A. Davis, and petitioner alleges that the court erred in declaring the deed void and liable to the judgments of complainants.

“Second, the court erred because it did not hold that the deed to C. T. Davis from his aunt was a resulting trust in favor of Fannie A. Davis, and that, therefore, when the deed from C. T. Davis to Fannie A. Davis was made, it was but the furtherance of said trust.”

The legal principles involved in the first assignment have been so often the subject of judicial consideration that á reference to only a few of the more recent expressions of the courts would seem ample.

[783]*783In Sledge v. Reed, 112 Va. 202, 70 S. E. 523, Judge Harrison, in a ease strikingly like the one under consideration, says:

“It is well settled that transactions between husband and wife must be closely scrutinized to see that they are fair and honest and not mere contrivances resorted to for the purpose of placing the husband’s property beyond the reach of his creditors, and that in a contest between the creditors of a husband and the wife, the burden of proof is upon her to show by clear and satisfactory evidence the bona fides of the transaction. In all such eases, the presumptions are in favor of the creditors, and not in favor of the title of the wife. The mere holding of a bond is not sufficient evidence that at the time the bond purports to have been given it was recognized as a debt, and that both husband and wife intended to occupy the relation to each other of debtor and creditor. The burden is upon the wife to show that the original transaction represented a loan by her to the husband, and a contemporaneous promise on his part to pay the debt; otherwise, what was originally a gift to aid the husband in business, and used by him as a basis of credit, could subsequently, when he became involved, be converted into a debt to his wife, and thus perpetrate a fraud upon his creditors with the utmost facility and impunity. (Kline v. Kline, 103 Va. 263, 48 S. E. 882; Spence v. Repass, 94 Va. 716, 27 S. E. 583.)

“The record shows that the wife was a practicing physician in the country, and that she also conducted a small mercantile business, while the husband was engaged in farming. It appears that the wife kept, books of account, in which she had an account against her husband, consisting of items of cash charged to him at different times, and sundry other charges, such [784]*784as cow, horse, mule, sow and pigs, buggy and ’harness, etc. This account of the wife against the husband was the basis of the alleged consideration of $700.00 stated on the face of the deed from her husband which is now assailed by the husband’s creditors. The books containing the account were, over the objection of the appellants, introduced in evidence for the purpose of establishing the wife’s claim that the purchase of the real estate by her from her husband was bona fide, and that a valuable consideration was paid for it.

“Without passing upon the question, whether or not these books of account were admissible in evidence, it is sufficient to say, that with the aid of the books the wife has wholly failed to establish her claim as required in such cases. There is no evidence to show that the original transactions, out of which the several items of this account grew, represented a loan by her to the husband, and that there was a contemporaneous promise on his part to pay the debt. The burden is upon the wife to show that, with respect to the items of the account asserted by her, both she and her husband intended to occupy the relation to each other of debtor and creditor.

“In the light of these well settled principles, which cannot be too consistently and firmly adhered to in this class of cases, it is clear, from the record, that the deed of October 16, 1903, from John H. Reed to his wife, Ina H. Reed, must be set aside as in fraud of the rights of the appellants.”

The same general statements of the law were recognized and approved in the more recent case of Harris v. Carver, 139 Va. 676, 124 S. E. 206, in which Judge Holt says:

“Mr. Harris, we have seen, was insolvent, and Mrs. Harris had nothing with which to pay this purchase [785]*785money save what she could raise from the farm, and, but for the temporary prosperity, which she, in common with all tobacco growers, enjoyed for a time, probably would not have paid at all. The evidence shows that she paid the entire purchase price, $2,000.00, and that she paid this with tobacco raised by herself and some on the farm. Mr. Harris paid nothing thereon. It does appear that, his wife turned over to him a small tract for cultivation, and that he used all that he made thereon in paying actual family expenses. It is also true that possession of this farm never went out of the Harris family.

“* * * The plaintiff took no evidence and relies wholly upon presumptions of law.

“Hence the presumption of the law is—and this presumption is not affected by the married woman’s act—that the husband is the owner of all the property, real and personal, of which the wife may be in possession during coverture, especially if they are living together as husband and wife; and to overcome this presumption, in a contest between the husband’s creditors and the wife, she must show affirmatively that the property is her own, and that it was derived from a source other than her husband and in good faith, if he be insolvent, otherwise a wide door would be open to fraud.” Yates v. Law, 86 Va. 117, 9 S. E. 508.

In this ease, it must be remembered that Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
139 S.E. 495, 148 Va. 779, 1927 Va. LEXIS 277, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-southern-distributing-co-va-1927.