Pyatt v. Riley

265 Ill. 324
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 16, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 265 Ill. 324 (Pyatt v. Riley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pyatt v. Riley, 265 Ill. 324 (Ill. 1914).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Cooke

delivered the opinion of the court:

Minnie D. Riley, the appellee, (formerly Minnie D. Pyatt.) secured a decree of divorce and for alimony against Edward C. Pyatt in the district court of Chautauqua county, Kansas. She thereafter commenced an attachment suit in the circuit court of Moultrie county, Illinois, against Pyatt, based upon the said decree for alimony, and levied upon 160 acres of land as the property of Pyatt. Ann E. Pyatt, the appellant, filed an interplea, claiming title to the land by virtue of a sheriff’s deed to 140 acres issued upon a certificate of sale which had been assigned to her by the Plano Manufacturing Company, and a sheriff’s deed to 20 acres issued upon a certificate of sale which had been assigned to her by the purchaser at a sale under a judgment in favor of Spitler 8c Jennings. The circuit court adjudged that the title of appellant to the 140 acres was void and that her title to the 20 acres was valid. On appeal to this court the judgment of the circuit court finding the title to the 20 acres in appellant was affirmed, and in so far as it found appellant’s title to the 140 acres was void the judgment was reversed and the cause was remanded to the circuit court for a new trial. (Pyatt v. Riley, 252 Ill. 36.) When the cause was re-docketed in the circuit court appellee obtained leave to file seven additional replications to the interplea, whereby she set - up', in substance, that the naked legal title to the 140 acres was placed in appellant for the purpose of defrauding appellee out of the amount of alimony awarded her by said decree, and that appellant holds the title to the said 140 acres as trustee for Edward C. Pyatt.

It is urged that the cdurt erred in permitting the additional replications to be filed, for the reason that on the first trial the only ground on which appellant’s title was attacked was that the judgments on which her sheriff’s deeds were based were invalid, and that appellee should not now be'permitted, after that matter had been litigated and determined against her in this court, to' thus attack the title of appellant upon a new and entirely different ground. When the former judgment was reversed by this court the cause was remanded to the circuit court for a new trial. The cause was re-docketed in the circuit court, and appellee was entitled to a new trial pursuant to the mandate of this court and was entitled to amend her pleadings and present any additional defense she might have to appellant’s claim. In passing upon this question in Dinsmoor v. Rowse, 211 Ill. 317,.we said: “The rule is, that when a decree or judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded without specific directions the .judgment of the court below is entirely abrogated, and the cause then stands in the court below precisely as if no trial had occurred, and the lower court has the same power over the record as it had before its judgment or decree was rendered, and may permit amendments to the pleadings and the introduction of other evidence, so long as the same are not inconsistent with the principles announced by the court of review and do not introduce grounds that did not exist at the hearing in the court below.—Palmer v. Woods, 149 Ill. 146; Perry v. Burton, 126 id. 599; Rush v. Rush, 170 id. 623.” This has been the holding) of this court ever since the decision in Chickering v. Failes, 29 Ill. 294. The court did not err in permitting the additional replications to be filed.

• "At the close of appellee’s case, and again at the close of all the evidence, appellant requested the court to give a peremptory instruction directing the jury to find the issues in her favor, and the refusal of this instruction is assigned as error. The evidence offered on behalf of appellee tended to prove that E. A. Pyatt, the husband of appellant, died testate; that by his will he devised to his son, Edward C. Pyatt, during his natural life, and at his death to the heirs of his body, the 140 acres of land involved as well' as the 20 acres also involved on the former appeal; that the lands thus devised were charged with a lien for the sum of $500 per annum, to be paid annually, out of the rents and profits thereof, to appellant until her death; that the will further provided that as a portion of his real estate was encumbered by mortgages and he might increase his mortgage indebtedness during his lifetime, and as he desired that one-fifth of such encumbrances should be borne by his grandchildren and the remainder equally by all his children, he appointed his wife as trustee, without bond, to take immediate possession of all his real estate and apply the proceeds of the same to the payment of such indebtedness until the same should be fully paid, and that the bequests made to his children and grandchildren should be suspended until the discharge of such indebtedness; that a certificate of sale of the 140 acres in question was executed and delivered by the sheriff to the Plano Manufacturing Company July 21, 1906, pursuant to a sale under execution against the lands of Edward C. Pyatt; that on or about July 17, 1907, this certificate of sale was assigned and transferred by the Plano Manufacturing Company to appellant for the sum of $111.88, and on October 31, 1907, the sheriff executed and delivered to her a deed to the land; that on April 22, 1907, appellant filed her final report as trustee under the will of her husband, which report was approved in the month of September following and appellant was discharged as such trustee; that on August 22,' 1907, appellant received $146.45 from the sale of oats, on September 1 $120 for pasture, and from September 18 to September 25 $224.48 for corn,—all from the 160 acres in question; that on June 17, 1907, appellee brought her suit for divorce against Edward C. Pyatt in the district court of Chautauqua county, Kansas, and on that day summons was served upon said Edward C. Pyatt; that on September 16, 1907, a decree of divorce was entered in that cause and a decree for $1000 alimony against Edward C. Pyatt; that during the latter part of June, 1907, Edward C. Pyatt visited appellant at her home, in Decatur, Illinois, and remained there until about the middle of August; that while he was there his mother talked to him about the purchase of the certificate of sale from the Plano Manufacturing Company and he made no objection to the purchase; that at that time appellant knew that the divorce suit was pending in Kansas and had written appellee in reference to the trouble between her and her husband, in which letter she stated that no property that she had anything to do with would be “fooled away with lawyersthat in the opinion of appellee the annual rental value of the land in question was seven, eight or nine dollars per acre.

Viewed in the light most favorable to appellee, this evidence falls far short of showing that the mere na,ked title to this 140 acres was vested in appellant and that Edward C. Pyatt was the beneficial owner. The mere fact that Edward C. Pyatt was present at his mother’s home at 'the time the certificate of sale was assigned to her does not tend to-prove that the transaction was for his benefit. The fact that appellant knew, at the time she purchased the certificate of sale, that the divorce suit was pending in Kansas has no bearing "whatever upon the question whether she purchased the certificate for the benefit of her son.

Appellee assumes that the purchasé and assignment of the certificate of sale was a transaction between appellant and Edward C.

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Bluebook (online)
265 Ill. 324, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pyatt-v-riley-ill-1914.