Redmond v. Hayes

133 N.W. 1016, 116 Minn. 403, 1912 Minn. LEXIS 629
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedJanuary 5, 1912
DocketNos. 17,289—(156)
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 133 N.W. 1016 (Redmond v. Hayes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Redmond v. Hayes, 133 N.W. 1016, 116 Minn. 403, 1912 Minn. LEXIS 629 (Mich. 1912).

Opinion

Start, C. J.

Appeal from an order of the district court of the county of Fillmore striking out the defendant’s first amended answer as sham and frivolous.

The action is one to determine adverse claims to real estate, consisting of eighty acres of farm land. The complaint was in the usual form in such actions, alleging the plaintiff’s ownership and possession of the land, without disclosing the source of the title, and that the defendant claimed some estate therein or lien thereon. The defendant by his original answer admitted that he claimed certain liens on the land, setting out the source and nature thereof. A general demurrer to his answer was sustained by the trial court. Thereupon the defendant interposed the amended answer here in question, setting out the source and nature of his alleged liens. The plaintiff then made a motion to strike out the amended answer as [405]*405sham and frivolous, basing the motion upon the complaint, original answer, demurrer thereto, the order sustaining it, the judgment roll in the case of Cady Hayes, the defendant herein, against Nellie Travis and others, and the affidavit of the plaintiff herein. In opposition to the motion the defendant filed his own affidavit. The trial court, upon a consideration of the moving papers and the records and files therein referred to, and of the defendant’s affidavit, made the order appealed from.

The record here relevant is voluminous and involved. Stated as concisely as practicable, the record shows the alleged facts following:

February 7, 1901, Patrick Pedmond and Anne Pedmond, the plaintiff herein, were husband and wife, residing upon a farm of two hundred acres in Fillmore county, the fee title to which was in Patrick, subject to the inchoate interest therein of his wife, and subject to two mortgages thereon to the defendant herein. They were the parents of thirteen children then living, including Edward Pedmond and Nellie Travis. Eighty acres of this farm, hereinafter referred to as the “homestead,” was the homestead of the Pedmonds, and was then occupied by them as such, and thereafter until the death of the husband, Patrick Pedmond, intestate, on November 3, 1907, and continuously thereafter by his widow, the plaintiff herein. One hundred and twenty acres of the farm, hereinafter referred to as the “unexempt land,” was liable for the debts of Patrick Pedmond. On February 7, 1901, Patrick Pedmond, Anne Pedmond, and their son Edward Pedmond were severally indebted to the defendant in the aggregate sum of $1,289.10, exclusive of the mortgages, as evidenced by their unsecured promissory notes. On the day last named, Patrick Pedmond by warranty deed, in which his wife joined, conveyed the whole of the farm to Nicholas Travis, the husband of their daughter Nellie Travis. At the same time they transferred to Travis all their personal property, not exempt, owned by either of them. The defendant, on June 4, 1902, duly recovered three judgments, which were duly docketed in the district court in the county of Fillmore, on three several promissory notes — one against Patrick, Anne, and Edward Pedmond for $418.98, one against Patrick [406]*406for $229.13, and one against Patrick and Anné Redmond for $918.68.

Nicholas Travis died testate January 17, 1904. Iiis wife, Nellie Travis, was under his will his sole devisee, legatee, and executrix. The will was duly admitted to probate, and she was appointed executrix. July 17, 1905, the executrix closed the administration of the estate, and on that day the final decree was made assigning the residue of the estate to her, as sole devisee and legatee.

Before the making of such final decree, and on April 15, 1905, the defendant herein brought an action in the district court of the county of Pillmore, in which he was plaintiff and Patrick Redmond, Anne Redmond and Nellie Travis, individually and in her capacity as executrix, were defendants, to have the transfer of the farm to Nicholas Travis adjudged fraudulent and void as to the plaintiff as such creditor, to have three judgments declared liens on the unexempt portion thereof, and for judgment against Nellie Travis, individually, as such sole devisee and legatee and as such executrix, for the use and rental value of the unexempt land and the value of the personal property so sold to Nicholas Travis, and by him converted to his own use, and to have the judgment made a lien on the whole of the farm, including the homestead.

Nellie Travis, by warranty deed of date November 16, 1906, conveyed the homestead to her mother, the plaintiff, for the consideration of one dollar and love and affection. The deed was duly recorded February 25, 1907. The defendant herein foreclosed his two mortgages, and on the demand of the plaintiff herein the unexempt land was first offered for sale, and the same was sold in December, 1909, to purchasers other than the defendant, for the full amount due on the mortgages, which was the full value of such unexempt land. The defendant, on December 24, 1910, redeemed from the foreclosure sales as a creditor by virtue of his three judgments. The unexempt land was not sold on execution sale under the judgments, for the alleged reason that the full value thereof was absorbed in the payment of the mortgages.

Judgment was entered in the creditor’s action April 9, 1910, whereby it was adjudged, with' other matters, that the conveyance [407]*407of the farm by Patrick and Anne Redmond and the transfer of' the unexempt personal property to Nicholas Travis, and each of them, were fraudulent and void as to the plaintiff, Cady Hayes, the defendant herein, as such judgment creditor, and that the same, and each of them, were annulled and canceled as to him; that his three judgments were a lien on the unexempt land, but that-none .of them was a lien on the homestead; and that Nellie Travis, individually and in her capacity as executrix, was chargeable as trustee in the sum of $1,268.50, for which judgment was entered, as a trust fund arising from the rents and profits of the unexempt land and from the unexempt personal property received and converted by her and her husband by means of such fraudulent conveyance and transfer. This trust judgment was to constitute a fund out of which to pay whatever portion of the three judgments might remain unpaid after the amount realized from the sale on execution of the unexempt land had been applied in payment on the same.

Counsel for the defendant contends that these alleged facts show that the defendant has a lien on the land described in the complaint, the homestead, or on some undivided part thereof. The claim is, in effect, that if the fraudulent deed was absolutely annulled, as the judgment purports to do, then the title to the homestead thereby revested in the fraudulent grantor, Patrick Redmond, and when he died intestate seised of the homestead, his widow took a life estate therein, and his thirteen children took in equal shares the fee there-" of subject to the life estate; therefore the defendant’s judgments against two of the children, Edward and Nellie, are a lien on the undivided share of each in the land. The difficulty with this argument is that the premises are radically unsound, for the .fee title to the farm, or any part thereof, on the cancelation of the fraudulent deed, did not revert to the fraudulent grantor.

The general rule is well settled that a fraudulent conveyance is good as between the parties thereto, and the title vests in the grantee, subject to the right of creditors to have the grant annulled as to them.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Sisco v. Paulson
45 N.W.2d 385 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1950)
Lind v. O. N. Johnson Co.
282 N.W. 661 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1938)
Dondis v. Lash
186 N.E. 549 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1933)
McGrath v. Pothen
209 N.W. 752 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1926)
First Nat. Bank of Detroit v. Skidmore
267 S.W. 1051 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1924)
Nelson v. Helmbrecht
193 N.W. 688 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1923)
Aiken v. Timm
180 N.W. 234 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1920)
Thysell v. McDonald
159 N.W. 958 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1916)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
133 N.W. 1016, 116 Minn. 403, 1912 Minn. LEXIS 629, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/redmond-v-hayes-minn-1912.