Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Hooker

215 F. Supp. 482, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9557
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Mississippi
DecidedMarch 20, 1963
DocketNo. W-C-28-61
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 215 F. Supp. 482 (Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Hooker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Hooker, 215 F. Supp. 482, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9557 (N.D. Miss. 1963).

Opinion

CLAYTON, District Judge.

In an earlier case in this court, plaintiff obtained a consent judgment against the defendant, Gladney Hooker, dated the 27th day of November, 1961. Complaint was pending for several months before judgment in that case. Six days before the date of the entry of that judgment, on November 21, 1961, a deed dated the 25th day of October, 1961, was filed for record in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, which purported to convey certain real estate therein described from the defendant, Gladney Hooker, as grantor, to the defendant, J. L. Otts, as grantee. Gladney Hooker had purchased this property for a consideration of $5900.00 several years before the time with which we are concerned, and afterward made some improvements on the dwelling house thereon. In 1961 Hooker negotiated a loan with the Federal Land Bank with the subject property as security and executed a deed of trust to secure the payment of $6100.00 on the 12th day of July, 1961, which was recorded on the 14th of July, 1961. Testimony of appraisers placed the present value of this property as low as $7500.00 and as high as $13,500.00. It seems reasonable to say that this property now has a sound value of at least $10,000.00.

This is an action to set aside the conveyance from Hooker to Otts and to subject this property to the payment of the aforementioned judgment. Other facts pertinent to disposition, about which there is little controversy, will be set out hereafter.

1) The same person who prepared the deed from Hooker to Otts testified that a few days later she prepared a deed to convey the very same property from Otts to Hooker and that this deed was signed and acknowledged by Otts. This witness testified that this deed was handed to Hooker. It was never .recorded and Hooker testified that he later destroyed it. His stated reasons for so doing will be mentioned later.

2) Hooker testified that prior to the execution of the deed from him to Otts that he was in desperate financial condition and persuaded Otts, who was his employee in a filling station business, to obtain a loan from a small loan company by giving his household furniture and furnishings as security and to lend the proceeds of this loan to Hooker. These proceeds, he said, were $800.00. Additionally Hooker testified that he obtained from an oil company approximately $1,-000.00 in credit against a credit card which had been issued in the name of defendant Otts. Just how this debt was retired and by whom is not clear from the evidence except that Hooker did claim it was a debt owed to Otts by him.

3) Hooker admitted that at the time of the deed from him to Otts, he, Hooker, was hopelessly involved financially. Both Hooker and Otts testified that the deed was in fact given to Otts for security for the obligations running from Hooker to Otts, claimed by them substantially as aforementioned, and that the deed from Otts to Hooker was intended in substance to give Hooker the right to repurchase upon payment to Otts of the entire indebtedness owed. Hooker said that when it became evident that he [484]*484could not repay Otts, then he, Hooker, destroyed the deed from Otts to him. He was not certain as to the date when this was done.

4) The deed from Hooker to Otts recited a nominal consideration and did not have revenue stamps in any amount thereon. Both defendants agree that Hooker was obligated to pay taxes for the tax year 1961 and Hooker says he did not have funds with which to put the revenue stamps on the deed nor with which to pay these taxes when they became due. Otts said he paid the taxes to protect his property.

5) Otts did not go into actual physical possession of this property until the first or middle of July, 1962. However, he testified that Hooker’s brother was in possession on a rental agreement from Hooker at the time the deed was made and that this brother paid to him, Otts, a monthly rental from the date of the deed from Hooker to Otts until the date he, Otts, moved on the property. Both defendants admitted that Hooker got the crops raised on this property in 1962.

6) There is no question about it: The conveyance from Hooker to Otts made Hooker hopelessly insolvent.

7) Plaintiff invokes, in these circumstances, the provisions of § 265 of the Mississippi Code of 1942, which reads as follows:

“§ 265. Fraudulent conveyances.
“Every gift, grant, or conveyance of lands, tenements, or heredita-ments, goods or chattels, or of any rent, common or other profit or charge out of the same, by writing or otherwise; and every bond, suit, judgment, or execution had or made and contrived of malice, fraud, covin, collusion, or guile, to the intent or purpose to delay, hinder, or defraud creditors of their just and lawful actions, suits, debts, accounts, damages, penalties, or forfeitures, or to defraud or deceive those who shall purchase the same lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or any rent, profit, or commodity out of them, shall be from henceforth deemed and taken only as against the person or persons, his, her, or their heirs, successors, executors, administrators, or assigns, and every of them whose debts, suits, demands, estates, or interests by such guileful and covinous devices and practices shall or might be in any way disturbed, hindered, delayed, or defrauded, to be clearly and utterly void; any pretense, color, feigned consideration, expressing of use, or any other matter or thing to the contrary notwithstanding.
“And moreover, if any conveyance be of goods or chattels, and be not on consideration deemed valuable in law, it shall be taken to be fraudulent within this statute, unless the same be by will duly proved and recorded, or by writing acknowledged or proved; and such writing, if the same be for real estate, shall be acknowledged or proved and filed for record in the county where the land conveyed is situated, and, if for personal property, then in the county where the donee shall reside or the property shall be; and the proof or acknowledgment in either cases shall be taken or made and certified in the same manner as conveyances of lands and tenements are by law directed to be acknowledged or proved, unless, in the case of personal property, possession shall really and bona fide remain with the donee.”

Many of the badges of fraud identified in the cases arising under this statute are present here. On the basis of the current value of this property aforementioned, it is clear that the consideration flowing from Otts to Hooker at the time the conveyance was executed was substantially less than the value of the equity then owned by Hooker. This is true even if the incredible version of defendants as to how any consideration arose is accepted at face value. There was some secrecy connected with the [485]*485transaction since the deed from Hooker to Otts was retained in Hooker’s possession almost a month before Hooker lodged it for record. The transaction under question here (which was a part of what defendants claimed was a larger transaction) was not in the usual course or mode of doing business.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
215 F. Supp. 482, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9557, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/firestone-tire-rubber-co-v-hooker-msnd-1963.