Harrison v. Chatfield

7 Ohio Cir. Dec. 699
CourtLucas Circuit Court
DecidedOctober 11, 1897
StatusPublished

This text of 7 Ohio Cir. Dec. 699 (Harrison v. Chatfield) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Lucas Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harrison v. Chatfield, 7 Ohio Cir. Dec. 699 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1897).

Opinion

Parker, J.

(Orally.)

In this case a petition was filed in the court of common pleas of this county, on the 23d day of November, 1896, which sets forth that on the 17th day of October, 1892, the defendants, Eliza W. Chatfield and William H. Chatfield, by separate deeds of assignment, severally assigned all their property to the plaintiff for the benefit of their creditors, which assignments were duly filed at 3:53 o'clock, p. M., on the 19th day of October, 3 892, in the probate court of Hamilton county, Ohio, and thereupon the plaintiff duly qualified and entered upon his duties as such assignee. Reading from the petition:

‘ ‘ Said deeds of assignment included ‘ all and singular, the rents, tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances, goods, chattels, stocks, promissory notes, debts, ehoses in action, evidences of debt, claims, demands, property, and effects of every description, belonging to them severally, wherever the same may be situated, the same to be held by said Joseph T. Harrison in trust, to sell and dispose of said real and personal property. First, for the payment of lawful costs; seeond, payment of claims [700]*700of creditors in full or ratably; third, the balance, if any, to be returned to them severally.’
"Plaintiff says that at the time of the execution of the said deeds of assignment, the said Eliza W. Chatfield was the owner, subject to a life or dower interest of Mary C. Wade, of the undivided one-eighth of lot 63, Port Lawrence subdivision of the city of Toledo, Lucas county, Ohio, and which by the terms of said deeds of assignment were conveyed to the plaintiff on the date aforesaid.
"Plaintiff says that the affairs of said assignment have never been settled, and that he is still the duly qualified assignee of the property of said Eliza W. Chatfield and William H. Chatfield.
"Plaintiff says that the affairs of said assignment have never been settled, and that he is still the duly qualified assignee of the property of said Eliza W. Chatfield and William H. Chatfield.
"Plaintiff says that while acting under the deeds of assignment and before the affairs had been settled (and which after the sale of all other estate, real and personal, which came to the knowledge of plaintiff, was insufficient to pay the debts of said Eliza W. and William H. Chatfield). the said Eliza W. and William H. Chatfield, on the 12th day of March 1894, by a deed recorded March 19, 1894, at 10 .T5 a. M., in the office of the recorder of Lucas county, Ohio, and by a pretended consideration of $3,000, conveyed the said real estate by a deed of general warranty (: ub-ject to the interest of said Mary C. Wade) to a certain Charles B. .Eggleston, then, and now, a resident of Chicago, Illinois. That notwithstanding the said conveyance the said Eliza W. Chatfield, and William H. Chatfield have since continued and still continue to treat said real estate as their own.
“Plaintiff says that at the time of said defendants making said deed they were largely indebted and insolvent; that said conveyance was fraudulently made and for simulated and pretended considerations, and was made to hinder, delay, and defraud the plaintiff in the execution of his trust and their creditors of their just and lawful debts. ’ ’

The petition contains a prayer for the setting aside of the deed from Eliza W. Chatfield and William H. Chatfield to Charles B. Eggleston, and for general- relief.

To this petition the defendant, Eliza W. Chatfield, answers, denying that any interest which she then had in lot 63, Port Lawrence division, Toledo,-Ohio, was conveyed or was intended to be conveyed by the deed of assignment from her to the said plaintiff referred to in said petition, and denying that the sale and conveyance of March 12, 1894, to the defendant, Charles B. Eggleston was fraudulently made, or made for a simulated or pretended consideration, or was made to hinder, delay, and defraud the plaintiff in the execution of his trust, or her creditors in the collection of their just and lawful debts.

But she avers, on the contrary, that said sale and conveyance to the defendant, Eggleston, was for a full and valuable consideration paid her therefor by said Eggleston. And she denies that since said conveyance she has continued to treat said real estate as her own.

The defendant, Eggleston, also answers, denying "that the deed referred to in said petition from Eliza W. and William H. Chatfield to him for the Toledo property was fraudulently made, or was for simu[701]*701lated or pretended considerations, or was made to hinder, delay and defraud the plaintiff in the execution of his trust, or the creditors of said Chatfields of their just and lawful debts.” Denies that the Chat-fields, since the conveyance, treat the property as their own. He avers that he purchased it in good faith, for a valuable consideration, and that at the time of said purchase he had no knowledge that the plaintiff had or made any claim to said real estate under the assignment to him set out in said petition. And he also avers “that no assignment from said Eliza W. Chatfield, conveying to said plaintiff any interest she had in said lot, had been recorded in Lucas county prior to the record therein of the aforesaid deed to him. ’ ’

The defendant, William H. Chatfield, files no answer; but it appears that the property in Lucas county with reference to which this controversy arises was owned by Mrs. Chatfield, and that the only interest Mr. Chatfield had in it was a contingent right of dower, so the fact that he is in default for answer is of no consequence.

It will be observed that the pleadings admit that the deeds of assignment were esecuted on October 17, 1892, and filed with the probate judge of Hamilton county on the 19th day of October, 1892; and that that of Mrs. Chatfield was not filed or recorded in the office of the recorder of Lucas county, Ohio; also that the deed of Eliza W. Chat-field was executed on March 14, 1894, and recorded in Lucas county, Ohio, on March 19, 1894; and that the trustee has not administered the interest of Eliza W. Chatfield in the Lucas county property. The fact that the deed of assignment was not recorded in Lucas county was admitted by the pleadings or established by uncontroverted evidence upon the trial.

The denial by Mrs. Chatfield that this property was conveyed is met and overcome by the production of the deed of assignment. That deed, in which her husband joins releasing his contingent right of dower or curtesy, reads in part as follows:

“Have granted, bargained, sold, assigned, transferred, and set over, and by these presents do grant, bargain, sell, assign, and set over, etc., all and singular, the lands, tenements, hereditaments, appurtenances, goods, chattels, stocks, promissory notes, debts, choses in action of every description, belonging to her, wherever the same may be situate, except such property as is by law exempt from execution.”

Her averment to the effect that she did not intend to convey this property to the assignee must be disregarded. There is no averment of or effort to establish by proof such fact as would authorize a reformation of the deed of assignment so as to make it conform to her alleged intent.

The conveyance to Eggleston was constructively fraudulent as to her, and there is some testimony tending to show that she had knowledge of the fact that she had no right to convey this property.

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Bluebook (online)
7 Ohio Cir. Dec. 699, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harrison-v-chatfield-ohcirctlucas-1897.