Moyer v. Adams

2 F. 182
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Indiana
DecidedApril 15, 1880
StatusPublished

This text of 2 F. 182 (Moyer v. Adams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Moyer v. Adams, 2 F. 182 (circtdin 1880).

Opinion

Drummond, G. J.

The case of Moyer et al. v. Adams was a bill filed in the district court by the assignee of Stoner & Moyer to set aside conveyances made on the twenty-fourth of November, 1877, by Moyer to Stephen G. Shank, and by Shank to the wife of Moyer, on the ground they were fraudulent as against creditors. Stoner & Moyer were adjudicated bankrupts on their own petition on May 18, 1878.

It does not clearly appear, by the evidence submitted to the court in this case, at what time Moyer became the owner of the property covered by the conveyance. The inference is that it was not later than 1869 Moyer bought the land with his own money and property. He had sold some real estate belonging to him many years before the bankruptcy, when he was comparatively free from debts, and made a present to his wife out of the proceeds of the sale of the sum of $500, and she took possession of the money and retained it, as she says, about a year. Then Moyer wanted it, and she gave it to him for the purpose of being used in the construction of the house placed on the property, and in which they lived; this must have been as early as 1869. When she gave her husband the money no note or other evidence of the debt was executed to her. There was no agreement about paying any interest. When needing the money, he asked for it to use in building, and she voluntarily gave it to him for that purpose. He says that the deed was made to her to secure her [183]*183the $500; that she had insisted upon it before that time, but that he had neglected to have the deed executed. Shank was made use of simply as the channel through which the property was conveyed to the wife by the husband. The house cost between $1,200 and $1,500. The husband says that when he got the money from the wife he was to pay it back to her. Moyer always paid the taxes on the property and the insurance, and seems to have treated it as his own prior to the conveyance made to his wife. The language used by Moyer is as follows: “When I got it (the money) from her I was to pay her back; there was no time set; I just said I would pay her back; no note was given or anything put in writing about it; I never put down in any book that I owed her $500.” The property in controversy was worth $2,500 to $3,000.

The case of Stoner et al. v. Adams, was also a bill filed in the district court by the assignee of Stoner & Moyer to set aside a conveyance made November 6, 1877. The facts that give rise to the controversy in this case are these:

Stoner and his wife were married in January 1859, and the wife, about 1868, received from her father’s estate the sum of $600. With this money the lot in controversy was purchased, and the deed taken in the name of the husband, July lé, 1868. Stoner built a house on the lot about three years after it was purchased, for which he paid $1,500 of his own money. This property, when the deed was made to her, was worth about $2,500 or $3,000. He had always paid the taxes on the property, and he resided in the house as his own. He had instructed a real estate agent to offer the house for sale at one time, in consequence of which he became liable to him for a commission, which he did not pay, and for which he was sued, and a judgment obtained against him, which he subsequently paid. No writings passed between the husband and wife in relation to the $600 with which the lot had been purchased. No note was ever given by the husband for the amount, and no agreement was made to pay any interest. It is said by both that the intention was that the property should be conveyed to the wife at the [184]*184time of the purchase, which, however, was never done until November 6, 1877, as already stated. The wife says that when the deed was made to her she paid him $20 in money that she had made herself since her marriage. A mortgage had been made on the house and lot for $1,000, which had been borrowed by the husband for the purpose of building the house. They both executed the mortgage. She says for years she had insisted that the property should be placed in her own name before it was done, but that he had put it off from time to time. She says, also, she did not know, at the time, that the deed was made to him, although, of course, she must have ascertained the fact shortly afterwards. The husband had never paid her the $600, or any interest on it.

These two cases were argued as one, and, as they relate to the property of two partners engaged together in trade, who became bankrupts, and, as the facts are somewhat similar, and the same principles are involved in each case, they will be considered together.

Several cases have been cited by the appellant’s counsel in support of the deeds made to the wife, but they do not seem to go to the full extent necessary in these cases. In Parton v. Yates, 41 Ind. 456, the supreme court of this state sustained a deed made by the husband to the wife, where the property had been conveyed to the husband, and the whole consideration paid therefor belonged to the wife; but the court, in that case, laid stress on the fact that no money or property of the husband had become united with the real estate which was the subject of controversy. It is true, there being a balance due as part of the purchase money, the husband had given a note for it, and he and his wife had executed a mortgage on the premises to secure its payment, but it was entirely unpaid, which the court considered an important fact in the case. Summers v. Hoover, 42 Ind. 153, was a case where the real estate was conveyed to the husband, but the consideration proceeded solely from the wife, and the deed was made to the husband without the wife’s consent, and the court intimated, in such a case, the deed to the wife would be valid; but it was clearly, as in the other case, on the ground that [185]*185neither money nor property of the husband had entered into the land which was the subject of controversy. In both these cases the property was conveyed to the wife hy the husband through a trustee. These are the only cases cited from the supreme court of Indiana which bear any analogy to the case now before the court. In Catherwood v. Watson, 65 Ind. 576, the supreme court merely decided that, where a tract of land was purchased hy the wife with her money, and a deed was taken in her husband’s name, there was no resulting trust in favor of the wife as against a judgment and execution creditor who levied on the land, and had no notice of the wife’s interest in the land. In Glidewell v. Spaugh, 26 Ind. 319, the court decided, where a conveyance of real estate was made to one person, and the consideration therefor proceeded from another, that no trust arose under the statute unless there was an agreement without fraud to hold the title for the use of the person paying the purchase money.

The district court, in each of the cases now under consideration, sustained the bill, and held that the conveyances respectively made to the wife were fraudulent as against the creditors of the bankrupts. From that decision an appeal was taken in each case by the wife, and by her husband. I think the decision of the district court was right in each case. The deeds were made to the wife in the fall of 1877, at a time when there can he no reasonable doubt that the firm of Stoner & Moyer was insolvent, as well as each member of the firm.

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Related

Glidewell v. Spaugh
26 Ind. 319 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1866)
Parton v. Yates
41 Ind. 456 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1872)
Summers v. Hoover
42 Ind. 153 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1873)
Catherwood v. Watson
65 Ind. 576 (Indiana Supreme Court, 1879)

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Bluebook (online)
2 F. 182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moyer-v-adams-circtdin-1880.