Sechrist v. Veres

25 Ohio Law. Abs. 325, 9 Ohio Op. 492, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1172
CourtJefferson County Court of Common Pleas
DecidedMarch 16, 1937
StatusPublished

This text of 25 Ohio Law. Abs. 325 (Sechrist v. Veres) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sechrist v. Veres, 25 Ohio Law. Abs. 325, 9 Ohio Op. 492, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1172 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1937).

Opinion

OPINION

By CARL A. W. WEINMAN, J.

Prior to November 1, 1935, the family of Samuel Sechrist and the family of Joseph Veres lived on adjoining farms in the northern part of Jefferson County. On the 1st day cf November, 1935, the defendant, Joseph Veres, shot and killed Eva Mae Sechrist. He is now serving a life sentence in the Ohio State Penitentiary for the crime of murder in the first degree. At the time of the killing of Eva Mae Sechrist the defendant, Joseph Veres, was the sole owner of certain real estate, being a farm comprising about 150 acres.

On November 8, 1935, while incarcerated in the county jail, the defendant, Joseph Veres, transferred the title to three separate tracts of real estate, being all of the real estate in his name, to his wife, Julia Veres, by a warranty deed. Plaintiff herein was later appointed administrator of the estate of Eva Mae Sechrist, and as said administrator, filed suit in this court against Joseph Veres, praying for damages for himself and next of kin for wrongful death. Subsequent to the filing of said suit for wrongful death, and before judgment was obtained, the petition in this case was filed.

The petition alleges that said conveyance of real estate was made without consideration, that it was fraudulently made to defraud creditors, and particularly the plaintiff in this action. Subsequently, judgment was awarded the plaintiff in the damage suit for wrongful death. Plaintiff is now seeking in this court to cancel and set aside the deed dated November 8, 1935, conveying ail the property of Joseph Veres to Julia Veres, his wife.

To tills petition the defendants filed their answers admitting the conveyance of all the real estate by deed, and denying each and every and singular all allegations set forth in the petition.

The plaintiff herein was not actually a creditor at the time this property was conveyed. At best he then had only a cause of action. He afterwards became a credit- or and so was a subsequent creditor. We must first determine, therefore, the rights of a subsequent creditor under the statutes and case law of the state of Ohio, before determining the rights of the parties in this case.

The treatment of the. rights of creditors through the years has not always been of the sort that makes for coherency or consistency. According to the strict common law, the conception is, that plaintiff can only establish himself as a creditor by the judgment of a court pronouncing upon his claim. Under the early law, it was only such judgment creditors who could avail themselves of the rights conferred by the statute of fraudulent conveyances. A study of the early cases reveals that neither common law nor equity was capable of relieving against wrongs perpetrated upon a creditor without the protection of the statute of fraudulent conveyances, and t-hen only under certain circumstances. The first statute of fraudulent conveyance was passed in England to the year 1577, which declared void as against creditors and others, all the debtor’s transfer of property when made with intent to delay or defraud them. It was this original English statute which has passed with tile common law into statute law of Ohio. These wrongs might have been righted by the gradual growth of equity and the powers of chancery in England, but histoi'y shows that redress was asked by means of legislation and not by equity procedure.

In 27 Corpus Juris,, page 723, §573, we find that it has been uniformly held that in the absence of statute expressly or impliedly provided otherwise, the creditor must acquire a specific lien upon the pioperty which constitutes the subject matter of an alleged fraudulent conveyance in order that he may ask a court of equity to set it aside and that this lien must exist at the time of the filing of the bill or at least before issue joined. Where a creditor seeks to set aside a fraudulent conveyance, the lien or vested right in the property and the fraudulent obstruction to the adequate enforcement to his lien or right, are the only essentials to the jurisdiction of equity. The foot-note of this section in Corpus Juris cites the case of Bustard v Dabney, 4 Ohio 68. This rule is founded upon the principle of the common law essential to the enjoyment and circulation of property that every debtor, until his property is specifically bound to the satisfaction of his debt by his own ag'.scment or by some judicial proceeding, has an absolute right to dispose of it at pleasure, to prefer one creditor to another, or even to waste or destroy it, a power'which no [327]*327tribunal whatever has authority to limit or control.

We, therefore, must examine our statutes and case law to determine whether or not by statute or by common law the state of Ohio has followed the rule founded upon the principle of the common law.

The statute law of the state of Ohio protects creditors from the unlawful conveyance of real estate. 88818, GC, provides:

“Every gift, grant or conveyance of lands 4 * - made or obtained with intent to defraud creditors of their just and lawful debts or damages 8 4 * shall be utterly void and of no effect.”

Sec 11104, GC, provides:

“A sale, conveyance, transfer, mortgage or assignment, made in trust or otherwise, by debtor or debtors 4 4 ' with a design to prefer one-or more creditors to the exclusion in whole or in part of others, and a sale, conveyance, transfer 4 * 4 procured by him or them to be rendered in any manner with intent to hinder, delay or defraud creditors, shall be void as to credit- or's of such, debtor or debtors at the suit of any credit or. or creditors 4 *

Sec 11105, GC, provides:

“The provisions of the next preceding section shall not apply unless the person or persons to whom such sale, conveyance, transfer, mortgage or assignment is made, knew ot such fraudulent intent on the part of such debtor or debtors * 4 4.”

The latter section is for the purpose of protecting bona fide purchasers of -property for value. The former sections prevent the conveyance of lands made or obtained with intent to defraud creditors by declaring that they shall be void ana of no effect.

The sections of the General Code hereinbefore referred to use the word “creditors,” and not the words “subsequent creditors.” Whether or not the word “creditors” can be construed as to include “subsequent creditors” within this meaning, leads us to a consideration of the case law of the state of Ohio. We should further interpret the case law of the state with reference to the rights of “subsequent creditors.”

In 1870 the case of Evans et v Lewis, 30 Oh St 11, came before the court on the question of the admission of testimony which might disclose the intent that prompted a conveyance from Thomas Eva ns to Elizabeth Evans, his wife. The action was filed to set aside a conveyance on the ground that it- was fraudulent, and that the same was done for the purpose of defrauding the plaintiff. Plaintiff was a subsequent creditor in that his right against the defendant was only a cause of action, not reduced to judgment at the time the conveyance took place. The answer denied ihe fraudulent intent and purpose and alleged the conveyance was made in good faith, in pursuance of a promise and an agreement made by the husband to and with his wife, nearly one year before the execution of the deeds in question and before the cause of action on which plaintiff recovered her judgment had accrued.

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Related

Schubeler v. Lilly
155 N.E. 699 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1926)
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22 Ohio Law. Abs. 412 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1936)
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4 Ohio 64 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1829)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
25 Ohio Law. Abs. 325, 9 Ohio Op. 492, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sechrist-v-veres-ohctcompljeffer-1937.