Haggins's Heirs v. Peck

49 Ky. 210, 10 B. Mon. 210, 1849 Ky. LEXIS 58
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedSeptember 29, 1849
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 49 Ky. 210 (Haggins's Heirs v. Peck) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Haggins's Heirs v. Peck, 49 Ky. 210, 10 B. Mon. 210, 1849 Ky. LEXIS 58 (Ky. Ct. App. 1849).

Opinion

Judge Simpson

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Michael Fishell having a debt on Thomas Fiahaven for seven hundred and' seventy dollars, secured by a mortgage on a large tract of land, on the 26th February, 1821, entered into a written agreement with James Haggin and Thomas Duckham, by which the two last named individuals bound themselves to pay him for his debt on Fiahaven the sum of eleven hundred dollars, in three annual instalments, and he agreed, upon the [211]*211payments being made or secured, to transfer to them, without recourse, the debt on Flahaven and the mortgage executed to secure its payment. At the time this contract was entered into, the debt on Flahaven, and the interest that had accrued thereon, exceeded very considerably the sum which Haggin and Duckham agreed to pay to Fishell.

On the 29th March, 1825, Fishell sold to Mrs.Gilman one moiety of the debt on Haggin and Duckham, and transferred to her one half of the mortgage on Flahaven which he had retained to secure its payment.

In 1827 a decree was rendered in a suit brought to foreclose the mortgage executed by Flahaven and to subject the land to sale to pay this debt on Haggin and Duckham, all of which was then due and unpaid; anda sale having been made under the decree, the whole land mortgaged was sold for the sum of $501, and purchased jointly by Fishell and Mrs. Gilman. The commissioner who made the sale reported to the Court that Fishell was the purchaser, and in consequence thereof a deed was decreed and made to Fishell alone; but it conclusively appeal’s that the purchase ,was made for their joint benefit, and, therefore, as to one moiety of the land, Fishell held the title in trust for Mrs. Gilman.

In 1830, Peck, as the agent of Fishell and Mrs. Gil-man, sold to Henry Beaty a small part of this land, and afterwards on the 12th day of February, 1831, Duckham purchased of Mrs Gilman her undivided interest in the whole of the residue of the land at the price of five hundred and fifty dollars; Fishell having on the previous day sold and released to Haggin the undivided moiety of said land which belonged to him.

Mrs. Gilman having died, Peck, as her executor, brought a suit and obtained a judgment at law against Duckham for the price of the land which he had stipulated to pay, and not being able to collect the amount by execution, he instituted this suit in chancery against Duckham to enforce the vendor’s lien on the land, and Beaty not having paid the whole amount of the pur[212]*212chase money which he owed for the part purchased by him, he was also made a party for the same purpose.

The deciee of the Circuit Court.

Fishell having obtained the legal title in the manner before mentioned, and having never conveyed it to Mrs. Gilman, and having died, his administrator and heirs were also made parties. Haggin having died, his personal representative and heirs were also made parties. And Dudley having presented a petition, setting up a claim to the land by purchase from Fishell’s heirs since his death, he was also made a party.

By an amended bill the complainaint alleged that no part of the eleven hundred dollars which Haggin and Duckham stipulated to pay Fishell for the debt on Fla-haven had been paid, except the sum of $501 raised by the aforesaid sale of the land mortgaged by Flahaven, and as his testatrix, Mrs. Gilman, was entitled to one half of the debt on Haggin and Duckham, he prayed for a decree against Duckham and the heirs and representatives of Haggin for such unpaid moiety of the debt.

The Circuit Court decreed a sale of the land purchased by Duckham to pay the purchase money, and also decreed the payment to the complainant of one half of the residue of the debt due upon the contract made by Haggin and Duckham with Fishell.

Various objections are made to that decree which we will consider and dispose of in the order in which they naturally arise.

The very foundation of the complainant’s claim is attacked. It is contended that Mrs. Gilman acquired the transfer from Fishell fraudulently. That the pretended consideration was an invalid and unreal claim to a tract of land in Hardin county, to which she had no title. That Fishell was induced by fraudulent misrepresentations to make the contract and execute the transfer to Mrs. Gilman without any actual consideration, and consequently that the transfer is void, and that Fishell’s heirs or their vendee, Dudley, has a right to the moiety of the land claimed by Mrs. Gilman and sold to Duckham.

Where there has been a conveyance of land, * fraud is alleged and denied, and no proof of the alleged fraud,the sale cannot be set aside. A rescisión of a contract for land which has been conveyed to the ancestor, cannot be made at the instance of the executor alone; the heirs should unite. It is not error to decree a sale of an undivided interest, or part thereof in land held by defendant to pay a debt or discharge a lien without dividing the land.

[213]*213Fishell’s heirs did not appear or file an answer. His administrator answered, and after alleging that there was no consideration for the transfer, but that it was procured fraudulently, called upon the executor of Mrs. Gilman to state fully and explicitly the nature of the consideration, and in what it consisted. The executor responded, denying all fraud, stated the consideration to have been the conveyance, by deed, of five hundred and fifty acres of land in Hardin county by Mrs. Gil-man to Fishell, and that the nature of the title was fully explained to and understood by Fishell.

The answer of the executor, so far as it details the consideration of the transfer, is responsive to the call made upon him by Fishell’s administrator, and must be taken as true, in the absence of all testimony contradicting it. The contract then having been executed upon the part of Mrs. Gilman by a conveyance for the land in Hardin county, it devolves upoir-those who all edge the fraud, and the want of title, to establish those facts by proof. No testimony has been taken for this pui’pose, and it is, therefore, not material whether the effort of the executor of Mrs. Gilman to exhibit a regular title has or not been successful.

There is also another reason why the complainant’s claim cannot be resisted on this ground. The title of Mrs. Gilman to the land in Hardin county was conveyed to Fishell, and has descended to his heirs. They have not offered to rescind the contract, or reconvey the land. For any thing that appears to the contrary, they may be opposed to it. The administrator has no right to demand a' rescisión. The contract could be rescinded only on the application of the heirs, and upon the presentation by them of such a case as would justify a Court of Equity in entering a decree to that effect. As, therefore, the transfer is still in force and no equitable objection to its enforcement by the complainant has been manifested, the decree cannot be successfully assailed upon this ground.

It is also contended that the heirs of Beaty, he having died, should have been made parties, and that the [214]*214land sold to him should have been laid off and bounded, and that Duckhana’s interest in the residue should have been ascertained and defined before any decree was rendered for the sale of the land. ,

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Bluebook (online)
49 Ky. 210, 10 B. Mon. 210, 1849 Ky. LEXIS 58, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hagginss-heirs-v-peck-kyctapp-1849.