State Ex Rel. Mothersead v. Mobley

1925 OK 831, 241 P. 155, 112 Okla. 152, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 566
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 13, 1925
Docket15733
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 1925 OK 831 (State Ex Rel. Mothersead v. Mobley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Mothersead v. Mobley, 1925 OK 831, 241 P. 155, 112 Okla. 152, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 566 (Okla. 1925).

Opinion

Opinion by

RUTH, C.

Plaintiff and defendants occupying the same relative positions in this court as in the trial court, they will be referred to accordingly.

Plaintiff’s petition alleges that about September 22, 1922, E. B. Mobley executed his note to the First National Bank of Wilson in the sum of $1,604.70, due and payable July 1, 1923. ¡Suit having been brought on the note, the district court of Cayter county on. September -, 1923, rendered judgment for the First National Bank against B. E. Mobley and E. C. Mobley. Execution was issued and returned, “No property found.” That thereafter, the First National Bank and the City State Bank of Wilson consolidated, and the judgment was delivered to the City State Bank as the successor to the First National Bank. That at the time the note was originally executed, E. C. Mobley had $15,000 on deposit in the First National Bank, which he afterwards withdrew and purchased lands in Oklahoma county. That in July, 1923, E. C. Mobley conveyed these lands to Gerald Mobley, the deed reciting a consideration of $7,000, but plaintiff alleges no consideration was paid by Gerald Mobley, and the deed waá executed with the intent to hinder-delay and defraud the creditors of E. C. Mobley. That E. C. Mobley has no other property out of which judgment can be collected; and prays cancellation of the deed.

Defendants answer by general denial, and Gerald Mobley files his cross-petition alleging he is in possession of the land; that he paid $7,000 for same, $4,000 of which was in cash, and he assumed a mortgage fo,y the balance, 'and prays the court to quiet title in him.

*153 The cause was tried to the court, judgment was rendered for defendants, and title quieted in Gerald Mobley, and plaintiff appeals.

It appears the plaintiff bank became insolvent and was taken over by the Bank Commissioner of the state of .Oklahoma, and that officer was on May 24, 1924, substituted as plaintiff.

Plaintiff assigns as error the insufficiency of the evidence and that the judgment is contrary to law, and relies entirely upon Wimberly v. Winstock, 46 Okla. 645, 149 Pac. 238, and Webster v. Clopeck Fish Co., 51 Okla. 702, 152 Pac. 379, but neither cited case is in point. In the .first ease cited, the cause was tried to a jury and the court instructed the jury to return a ¡verdict for’ the defendant, and this was the only question urged on appeal, and this court reversed the judgment and remanded the cause for a new trial on its merits, this court saying:

“We are led to believe the trial judge must have been laboring under a misapprehension of the rules of equity, or of evidence, applicable to a case of this nature, and therefore erroneously concluded that because the plaintiff could produce no witness who could from actual knowledge testify that there was collusion between the parties and fraud in the sale, that he had failed in his proof.”

In Webster v. Clopeck Fish Co., supra, the judgment debtor, Duncan, suddenly appeared in Duncan, Okla., andj looked around for property. Finding what he wanted, he wired his Wife’s brother, Webster, to come to Duncan from Long Beach, Cal. Webster came and made a deposit in the Duncan bank, and then gave a check for the property. Smith purchased a part of the property from ‘‘Bill” Duncan and never knew Webster in the transaction until the deal was about to be closed, when Duncan told Smith that Webster would have to make the deed, and when asked why Webster had to make the deed, Duncan “with a very significant wink,” said: “You understand how that is; if I should undertake to sell stuff here in my own name, they would jump on me from eve,ry standpoint.” The evidence showed Webster was a clerk in a grocery store and never made over $75 per month, and after the sale to Smith, Webster conveyed a one-half interest in all the other real estate to his sister, Mrs. Duncan, for the consideration of $1 and “love and affection.” The court found in favor of Clopeck Fish Company. Webster appealed, and this court affirmed the judgment.

The cases are in no wise similar to the ease at bar. Here E. C. and Gerald Mobley were brothers; they were in the confectionery business, and after selling out, they were in the “tailoring” business. E. C. Mobley indorsed a note for another brother, B. B. Mob-ley, in September, 1922, at which time E. C. had $15,000 on deposit in the First National Bank of Wilson, which money he subsequently withdrew, and with which plaintiff alleges he purchased the land in question, and when suit was filed by the First National Bank on this note, E. C. neither had money in the bank nor the property, he having sold the pi’operty in July, 1923, to Gerald Mobley.

The First National and the City State Bank afterwards consolidated, and the City State Bank did not become a creditor of E. C. Mobley until it acquired this judgment by reason of the consolidation, and after E. C. had sold the property to Gerald Mobley.

20 Cyc 419, lays dolvn the rule as follows:

‘‘Under the statute cf 13 Elizabeth, and statutes based thereon, a conveyance in f .'aud of creditors can be assailed only by creditors, and is valid as to all other parties * * * The 'general yule is that 'any pre-existing creditor has the right to attach a conveyance made by his debtor as. being in fraud of the rights of his creditors. Existing creditors are, as the words imply, persons having subsisting obligations against the debtor at the time the fraudulent (alienation was made or the secret tyust created, although their claims may not have matured or been reduced to judgment until after such conveyance. * * * The general rule is that a voluntary conveyance cannot be set aside at the instance of subsequent creditors. * * *” Citing oases.

Section 5271, Comp. St. 1921, provides:

“Every conveyance of real estate or any interest therein, * * * made -without a fair and valuable consideyation, or made in bad faith, or for the purpose of hindering, delaying, or defrauding creditors, shall be void as against all persons to whom the maker is at the time indebted or under any legal liability.”

At the time this plaintiff became a creditor by acquiring the judgment, the property was not owned by E. C. Mobley, and the plaintiff had knowledge of the fact that execution had been issued in Carter county and in Oklahoma county, and had been returned indorsed “No property found,” but it were useless to pursue this line further, as we are not palled to pass upon the question of whether the plaintiff was a pre-existing or subsequent creditor under the facts shown, this question not being raised by the record

Plaintiff argues that the consideration of $7,000 passing from Gerald to E. C. was so *154 inadequate as to constitute a badge of fraud, and introduces testimony of one D. M. Beatty, rwhoi sold the land to a Mr. Bush, in 1921 for $15,000, but Beatty testified the- land never was worth more than $6,000 or .$7,000; that in selling his lands he always sized up his man and put his price up accordingly.'

Other witnesses testify that the floods had washed away all the levees around this land in the spring of 1923, and after these floods the lands were worth according toi these witnesses from $4,000 to $6,000.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1925 OK 831, 241 P. 155, 112 Okla. 152, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 566, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-mothersead-v-mobley-okla-1925.