Martin v. Castle

91 S.W. 930, 193 Mo. 183, 1906 Mo. LEXIS 109
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJanuary 31, 1906
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 91 S.W. 930 (Martin v. Castle) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Martin v. Castle, 91 S.W. 930, 193 Mo. 183, 1906 Mo. LEXIS 109 (Mo. 1906).

Opinion

BURGESS, P. J.

— A second amended petition filed in this case is as follows:

“Plaintiff states that defendant Asa Roy Martin is a minor. Plaintiff further states that he was lawfully married to Mary E. Martin on the 30th day of April, 1884, in Delta county, Colorado, and thereafter continued to live with her as her husband until her death, which occurred oh the 5th day of March, 1895; that issue was born alive of said marriage; that at and prior to the date of her death, Mary E. Martin was seized of the following described real estate, to-wit, two hundred and fifty acres of land in Andrew county, Missouri. That prior to the death of Mary E. Martin she borrowed of one Mary A. Owen the sum of nineteen hundred dollars and made, executed and delivered to said Mary A. Owen her certain promissory note dated October 16,1892, by which she promised, for value received, to pay to said Mary A. Owen the sum of nineteen hundred dollars five years after date, with interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum from date, payable annually ; that plaintiff signed said note as surety; that on the same date, to-wit, October 16, 1892, said Mary E. Martin and this plaintiff, executed and delivered to one Herbert A. Owen, trustee, their certain deed of trust, in the nature of a mortgage, conveying the land heretofore described to said Herbert A. Owen, in trust to secure the payment of said note. Said deed of trust was duly filed for record on the 22nd day of November, 1892, and recorded in book 65 at page 515', in the office of the recorder of deeds of Andrew county, Missouri. Plaintiff further states that all the money received by said loan' [189]*189was in fact received by Mary E. Martin and during her lifetime expended by her in permanently improving said real estate. That after the death of said Mary E. Martin, plaintiff paid the interest on said note as it accrued up to the----day of —---, 1896.
“Plaintiff further states that on or about the-day of-----, 1896, Charles P. Booher and Isaac R. Williams and E. S. Castle, commenced proceedings before J. R. Majors, a justice of the peace within and for Nodaway township, Andrew county, Missouri, against this plaintiff upon certain promissory notes which had been signed by him jointly with Mary E. Martin, and recovered judgment thereon against this plaintiff, although said notes were in fact the primary obligations of Mary E. Martin and the estate of Mary E. Martin was at the time solvent; that said notes were given by Mary E. Martin to secure money on her own account and all money so secured by said notes was in fact used by said Mary E. Martin;that said Booher, Williams and Castle, who recovered said judgment, were not the payees in said notes, and said notes were procured by the defendants herein and turned over to said parties without consideration for the purpose of oppressing this plaintiff and compelling him to pay said notes and thereby relieve the estate of Mary E. Martin, in which all of these defendants were directly and personally interested as heirs and distributees, from the payment of the same and for the purpose of further oppressing this plaintiff by causing to be sold under said judgments his interest in the real estate herein described; that thereafter these defendants caused execution to be issued on said judgments and caused the sheriff of Andrew county to levy or pretend to levy upon and seize all the right, title and interest of this plaintiff in and to all the real estate herein described, together with a like interest in other large quantities of land — the total interest of this plaintiff levied upon being in excess of eight thousand dollars in value, although said judgments were trivial [190]*190in amount; that thereafter the said sheriff pretended to sell all the interest of this plaintiff in and to said land in a lump and at said pretended sale the entire interest of this plaintiff of the value aforesaid, brought one hundred and six dollars; that at said sale defendants herein, according to their original design and purpose to cheat and defraud this plaintiff, became the purchasers at the inadequate and insignificant price of one hundred and six dollars.
“Plaintiff further states thát said pretended judgments, the executions and levies thereon were all void and of no effect, for the reason that all of said judgments were rendered by the justice aforesaid without jurisdiction of the person of the defendant (who is plaintiff herein) or of the subject-matter of said actions ; that the records and proceedings by which said pretended judgments were procured, nowhere show that the defendant was ever served with process as required by law, or that the said justice had jurisdiction of the subject-matter of said causes of action.
“Plaintiff further states that notwithstanding the said judgments, executions, levies and sales were void, these defendants caused the sheriff aforesaid to execute and deliver a deed to them purporting to convey to them all of plaintiff’s title to said real estate, and caused said deed to be recorded in the office of the recorder of deeds of Andrew county, Missouri, in book--at page--; that thereafter said defendants proclaimed and declared themselves to be the owners of all of plaintiff’s interest in said land, and notified plaintiff’s tenants to whom he had rented said lands that they, the defendants, were the only persons entitled to collect the rents thereon; that by reason of the pretended levy, the sale of plaintiff’s interest in said real estate and the recording of said pretended deed and the false and fraudulent declarations of defendants aforesaid and the said notice given by defendants to plaintiff’s tenants, plaintiff was [191]*191unable to realize anything for the rent of said lands for the year 1896.
‘ ‘ That, as defendants well knew, the only property which plaintiff owned at the time above mentioned, was his life estate in the land above described, together with a life estate in certain other real estate in Andrew county, Missouri, of which defendants had wrongfully taken possession and were and for a long time prior thereto had been collecting the profits thereon.
“That by reason of the wrongful acts of defendants as above set forth plaintiff was unable to realize enough out of the rents and profits of said lands to pay the interest on said note given to Mary A. Owen aforesaid which became due on the 16th day of October, 1896.
“That Charles P. Booher and I. E. Williams and E. S. Castle were the attorneys for defendants in all the matters herein set forth and complained of and acted in concert with the defendants according to a previously arranged scheme and conspiracy entered into by them for the object and purpose of so injuring the plaintiff in the possession of said real estate, so slandering his title thereto and injuring his credit, as to render it impossible for him to pay the interest as it became due on said note, thereby causing the deed of trust given to secure the same to be foreclosed and thereby themselves became the owner of plaintiff’s title thereto.

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Bluebook (online)
91 S.W. 930, 193 Mo. 183, 1906 Mo. LEXIS 109, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/martin-v-castle-mo-1906.