Thrasher v. Craft

45 S.W.2d 827, 242 Ky. 101, 1932 Ky. LEXIS 219
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976)
DecidedJanuary 22, 1932
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 45 S.W.2d 827 (Thrasher v. Craft) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976) primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thrasher v. Craft, 45 S.W.2d 827, 242 Ky. 101, 1932 Ky. LEXIS 219 (Ky. 1932).

Opinion

Opinion of the Court by

Judge Perry —

Affirming.

This is an appeal from the Cumberland circuit court, wherein the appellants seek to reverse the judgment recovered by the appellee setting aside a deed made between them as fraudulent and subjecting the property conveyed to the satisfaction of the appellee’s debt.

The facts are these:

The appellant and coappellant, E. H. and Zelma Thrasher, are husband and- wife. The appellant, E. IT. Thrasher and appellee, Bertha Craft, are brother and sister and the children of A. J. Thrasher, deceased.

On February 17,1923, Sam Rush and wife conveyed to E. H. Thrasher and Zelma Thrasher, his wife, a farm of some 160 acres, lying* in "White’s Bottom, Cumber•land county, Ky., in consideration of the sum of $6,000 cash in hand paid. The deed was, after being duly recorded on February 19, 1923, taken by E. H. Thrasher to the home of himself and wife, where it was filed away and has since been kept. From this time, February 19, *103 1923, E. H.. Thrasher has been and thereby remained the holder of record title to an undivided one-half interest in the lands until he conveyed the same to his wife, Zelma Thrasher, on November 1, 1929, which conveyance, however, was not acknowledged nor put to record until March 4, 1930.

The $6,000 paid Rush for this farm, it is undisputed, was furnished to Zelma Thrasher by her father, M. F. Parmley; $2,000 of this amount, he and the appellants claimed, was given by him to his daughter, and the remaining $4,000 was loaned her upon her notes taken therefor, without interest, and without taking a lien upon the farm bought with this amount. This $6,000, thus secured by Zelma Thrasher, was by her turned over to her husband, E. H. Thrasher, to buy this farm. No directions were given E. H. Thrasher, either by his wife or her father, who advanced the money to her, as to how he should take deed to the purchased property, and a joint deed to himself and wife was, under his express directions, made them.

On January 9, 1927, E. H. Thrasher borrowed from his father, A. J. Thrasher, the sum of $400, for which amount he executed him his note, payable to him one day after date and bearing interest from date.

On March 19, 1929, A. J. Thrasher transferred this $400 note to his daughter, Bertha Craft, the appellee, the assignment to her being duly attested and indorsed upon the note as of that date, which was shortly before the death of A. J. Thrasher in April, 1929. Soon after this, Bertha Craft unsuccessfully sought payment of this note from her brother, E. H. Thrasher, which he refused and continued to refuse to pay, with the result that he was threatened with suit by her for its recovery.

While the appellant, E. H. Thrasher, was thus being-threatened with suit upon his note, which fact was known to his wife, the coappellant Zelma Thrasher, and discussed by them, the appellant E. H. Thrasher conveyed her on November 1, 1929, for the recited consideration of $1, his interest in the Sain Rush farm, which he had acquired therein by the joint deed made himself and wife by Sam Rush in 1923 and further, by this deed, conveyed her “all his interest in all live stock and farming tools.”

In February, 1930, the appellee, Bertha Craft, filed suit in the Cumberland circuit court against E. H. *104 Thrasher, seeking recovery upon the $400 note assigned her, which he unsuccessfully defended. Upon the trial, “after hearing all the evidence offered by both sides,” the court, upon its o.wn motion, directed the jury to find a verdict for the plaintiff, upon which judgment was entered for her debt, interest, and costs at its August term, 1930. Execution was issued upon this judgment in September, next following, and returned on October 6, next thereafter, indorsed, “No property found.”

Upon the judgment recovered by Bertha Craft and the return made thereon, she later in October, 1930, fij this, her suit in equity, against E. H. Thrasher and Zelma Thrasher, attacking, under sections 1906,1907, and 1907a of the Kentucky Statutes, the conveyance of November 1, 1929, .of the appellant E. H. Thrasher to his wife, the coappellant Zelma Thrasher, upon the grounds that it was voluntarily made, without any consideration, and conveyed her for the fraudulent purpose of preventing the property from being subjected to the payment of her debt. She prayed that the deed be set aside and that she be adjudged a lien upon the land, that same be enforced, and the land sold, or a sufficiency thereof, to satisfy her judgment, interest, and costs.

The appellants, E. H. Thrasher and Zelma Thrasher, filed their joint and separate answers, traversing the averments of the petition. Zelma Thrasher further therein affirmatively alleged that she was the wife of the appellant E. TI. Thrasher; that about the time of the threatened common-law suit of Bertha Craft against E. H. Thrasher, she discovered that the Bush farm, which had been bought by her husband with money partly given and partly loaned her by her father, M. P. Parmley, had been conveyed jointly to herself and husband, rather than to herself alone, and averred that she then demanded that the coappellant, E. H. Thrasher, make her a deed to the one-half interest in the farm so deeded in his name; that all these facts were known to the appellee, Bertha Craft, before she became the owner of the said $400 note sued on; that the said E. IT. Thrasher, to rectify the wrong done her by taking a joint deed to the property, deeded his one-half interest, thus secured in the farm, to her on the 1st day of November, 1929, for the alleged purpose of thus discharging the resulting trust claimed as to this one-half interest in the land, on the ground that she paid the entire consideration therefor, though deed to it was *105 wrongfully taken in her husband’s name without her knowledge and consent.

To these answers, the appellee filed her reply, denying their affirmative averments.

Upon submission of the cause, the chancellor granted the appellee the relief prayed for in her petition by adjudging that the appellant’s, E. H. Thrasher’s deed of November 1, 1929,, conveying his one-half interest in the land to his wife, Zelma Thrasher, be set aside, and that a sufficiency of the land, so conveyed by the deed, be subjected to the satisfaction of appellee’s debt, interest, and costs. „

From this judgment, the appellants have prosecuted this appeal, seeking its reversal.

The appellants very earnestly contend that the judgment is erroneous in setting aside this deed and subjecting the land conveyed by it to the payment of the appellee’s debt, upon the ground that it was not a fraudulent conveyance as to the appellee, Bertha Craft, who they maintain was a creditor with notice of both Parmley’s and Zelma Thrasher’s latent equities in the land. They also contend that the chancellor’s finding that there was no resulting trust in the land in favor of Zelma Thrasher, constituting a valuable consideration supporting her husband’s conveyance thereof to her, is erroneous.

As was said by this court in the case of Griggs v. Crane’s Trustee, 179 Ky. 48, 200 S. W. 317, 318:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
45 S.W.2d 827, 242 Ky. 101, 1932 Ky. LEXIS 219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thrasher-v-craft-kyctapphigh-1932.