Murphy v. Clayton

45 P. 267, 113 Cal. 153, 1896 Cal. LEXIS 758
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedJune 5, 1896
DocketS. F. No. 191
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 45 P. 267 (Murphy v. Clayton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Murphy v. Clayton, 45 P. 267, 113 Cal. 153, 1896 Cal. LEXIS 758 (Cal. 1896).

Opinion

Vanclief, C.

This is an action to establish a resulting trust in land. The cause was tried by the court without a jury. Defendant Clayton, administrator, etc., appeals upon the judgment-roll.

The following is a condensed statement of the findings of fact: The land described in the complaint was conveyed to D. J. Murphy on the thirty-first day of August, 1887, upon the consideration of twenty-three thousand dollars then paid by said D. J. Murphy and the plaintiff jointly, plaintiff paying one-half thereof, namely, eleven thousand five hundred dollars, from her separate property and estate; from the date of said conveyance till on or about the twentieth day of June, 1893, when said D. J. Murphy died, said land was of record in his name; said conveyance was made to him with the knowledge and consent of plaintiff; from the date of said conveyance to the time of his death the premises remained in the apparent sole possession and ownership of said Murphy, and was managed and dealt with by him as apparently the sole owner thereof, with the plaintiff's knowledge and consent; the plaintiff (his mother), and the defendant Kate Murphy (his wife), were his only heirs at law; the defendant Clayton, by an order of court duly made on the twenty-first day of July, 1893, was appointed administrator of the estate of said D. J. Murphy, and from thence hitherto has been the duly qualified and acting administrator of said estate; upon qualifying he took possession of and still holds the whole of said land, claiming that it is a part of said estate; a notice to creditors was duly published on the twenty-seventh day of July, 1893; within ten months thereafter claims against said decedent aggregating ninety thousand dollars were presented and allowed' by said administrator and the judge of the court; said estate is insolvent if the half of the property claimed by the plaintiff be excluded therefrom; the financial standing and credit of said D. J. Murphy were good, and were based on his real estate holdings and other properties standing in his name, including the [157]*157premises in dispute, and his indebtedness was contracted without notice to his creditors of the plaintiff’s secret equity in said premises.

The consideration for the land having, at the time of the purchase, been paid, half of it by appellant’s intestate and half of it by the respondent, and the title taken by the former, a resulting trust arose in the land in favor of respondent for the undivided one-half thereof, that proportion being an aliquot part of the consideration. (Olcott v. Bynum, 17 Wall. 44; Buck v. Swazey, 35 Me. 48; 56 Am. Dec. 681; Woodside v. Hewel, 109 Cal. 484; Somers v. Overhulser, 67 Cal. 237; Davis v. Baugh, 59 Cal. 573; Case v. Codding, 38 Cal. 193; Dikeman v. Norrie, 36 Cal. 101; Hidden v. Jordan, 21 Cal. 99; Osborne v. Endicott, 6 Cal. 149; 65 Am. Dec. 498; Perry on Trusts, sec. 127, et seq; 2 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence, sec. 1038, and numerous authorities there cited.)

It is insisted by the appellant that he, as the representative of theJ creditors of the deceased debtor, can assert the priority and superiority of their claims over the secret equity of the plaintiff, under the rule declared in Riley v. Martinelli, 97 Cal. 575; 33 Am. St. Rep. 209. In that case, the apparent right and title of the debtor was sold under execution upon an indebtedness arising from a' deficiency remaining after a sale in foreclosure. It was there held that “a judgment creditor purchasing at his own sale, equally with a third party making a purchase under the execution, is protected against latent equities of which he had no notice.” Meaning, of course, of which he had ¡no notice at the time of the sale. Further, it was said: “ The plaintiff cannot be said to be in a better position than she would have been had she held an unrecorded conveyance of the property. It was in her power for many years to have enforced her equitable right to the property; but, having failed to do so until a sale thereof, and recording of the evidence of such sale under an execution against her husband, who was the ostensible owner thereof, and in [158]*158whose name the title was recorded, she comes top late to ask for relief against one clothed with the legal title and an equal equity.” The decision proceeds upon the principle that the execution creditor, because he purchased the property without notice of the latent equity, was protected by the provisions of section 1107 of the Civil Code. That section gives a bona fide purchaser or encumbrancer, without notice, the right to hold against a prior purchaser having an unrecorded deed. The principle is familiar. In Bass v. Wheless, 2 Tenn. Ch. 535, it was held that, unless a purchaser has notice of the resulting trust, he takes the property freed of the equity of the cestui que trust, and that the advance of money on a mortgage is pro tanto a sale, “ and gives such a mortgagee, to the extent of the money advanced, all the rights of a bona fide purchaser for value and without notice.” So, also, in Haggard v. Benson, 3 Tenn. Ch. 278.

In Catherwood v. Watson, 65 Ind. 576, it was held that the resulting trust must give way to the creditor, who purchased the property under execution, because of a statute of that state, which reads: “ No such trust, whether implied or created, shall defeat the title of the purchaser for a valuable consideration, and without notice of the trust.”

A resulting trust, being a purely equitable interest, is cut off and destroyed as against all bona fide purchasers or mortgagees from the trustee for a valuable consideration and without notice. (2 Pomeroy’s Equity Jurisprudence, sec. 1043; Lehman v. Lewis, 62 Ala. 129; Flynt v. Hubbard, 57 Miss. 471.)

In Scott v. Umbarger, 41 Cal. 419, it is decided that one who purchases land from another who acquired the title fraudulently, and thereby became a trustee, in order to protect himself, must have been ignorant of any of the facts constituting the fraud, not only at the time of his purchase, but when he paid the purchase money and obtained his deed.

It is claimed here that the appellant stands in the re[159]*159lation of an encumbrancer by reason of his administratorship, which gives him a right to the possession of all the decedent’s estate for the purposes of administration and for the payment of debts; which right of possession has been recognized as a lien by this court in Beckett v. Selover, 7 Cal. 238; 68 Am. Dec. 237; Brenham v. Story, 39 Cal. 186, 188; Smith v. Olmstead, 88 Cal. 586; 22 Am. St. Rep. 336. But it will be observed that in all these cases, as well as in the sections of the Code of Civil Procedure applicable to the estates of deceased persons, the possession and lien mentioned relate to the estate of the decedent, and not to that which he held in trust for others. The decedent, D. J. Murphy, was the owner of but a moiety of the property, the other moiety belonging to the respondent.

Neither the appellant nor any creditor of the decedent stands in the relation of purchaser or mortgagee of the property.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
45 P. 267, 113 Cal. 153, 1896 Cal. LEXIS 758, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murphy-v-clayton-cal-1896.