Willamette Grocery Co. v. Skiff

248 P. 143, 118 Or. 685, 1926 Ore. LEXIS 122
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 2, 1926
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 248 P. 143 (Willamette Grocery Co. v. Skiff) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Willamette Grocery Co. v. Skiff, 248 P. 143, 118 Or. 685, 1926 Ore. LEXIS 122 (Or. 1926).

Opinion

BEAN, J.

On April 17, 1922, defendant Mark S. Skiff for a valuable consideration executed to Edna Ross his promissory note for the sum of $800, payable 90 days after date. On May 1, 1922, Edna Ross indorsed and delivered the note to the defendant bank as collateral security to secure a loan theretofore made by the bank to Edna Ross and her husband Wilburt J. Ross, upon which there was then due $604. After the maturity of the Skiff note, the bank, being unable to collect, instituted an action in *687 the circuit court for Marion County, Oregon, and thereafter on March 31, 1923, recovered judgment by default against Mark S. Skiff in the sum of $800 and accruing interest, costs and attorneys’ fees. On June 16, 1923, the bank caused to be issued an execution upon the judgment directed to the sheriff of Marion County, the county in which said defendant resided, but the sheriff was unable to find any property in the county subject to execution and returned the same to the court with the certificate to that effect. At the time the note was given, upon which the bank procured its judgment, Mark S. Skiff owned a certain interest in valuable business property in the City of Salem, Oregon, for which he and his wife executed a deed to his son, Mark S. Skiff, Jr., as a gift. The deed was executed a few days before the note matured. There was given to the bank as collateral to secure the Eoss note an automobile note, but it was found the car covered therein was not worth repossessing. There was also assigned to the bank as collateral to secure the Eoss note, a judgment against Kuffner-Crahane Lumber Company, the unpaid portion of which was found to be uncollectible before this suit was instituted.

The plaintiff, Willamette Grocery Company, was a judgment creditor of the defendant Mark S. Skiff in the sum of $614.96. The judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff and against Mark S. Skiff on January 4, 1923. April 5, 1923, plaintiff issued an execution on the judgment directed to the sheriff of Marion County, Oregon, where the defendants resided, but the sheriff was unable to find any property subject to the execution and returned the same nulla bona. The property involved is described as follows:

*688 “The south three-fourths of Lot Two (2) in Block Thirty-three- (33) in the city of Salem, in Marion County, Oregon, as said lot is shown and designated on the plat of said City of Salem, now on file and of record in the office of the Recorder of Conveyances for said Marion County, Oregon.”

On June 20, 1922, while the above-mentioned indebtedness and other large amounts of indebtedness of the defendant Mark S. Skiff existed, the defendant Mark S. Skiff and his wife executed and placed of record a deed purporting to convey the real premises above described to the defendant Mark S. Skiff, Jr. The deed was executed without consideration therefor as a gift to the defendant Mark S. Skiff, Jr. In July, 1922, the defendant Mark S. Skiff executed a trust deed of several tracts of real estate to the Ladd & Bush Bank of Salem, being all of the real estate owned by him except the real estate involved in this suit, to secure an indebtedness to that bank of $18,000.

The trial court found, among other things, that on June 20, 1922, the defendant Mark S. Skiff was the owner of a leviable interest in the lands described, and on that day, without any consideration therefor, except a prior promise to carry out an unenforceable request of his father to convey such lands to his son Mark S. Skiff, Jr., executed the deed in question to his son; that the grantee Mark S. Skiff, Jr., had no notice or knowledge of any indebtedness due or owing from the grantor to the plaintiff or the defendant bank, or any knowledge concerning his father’s financial affairs, “and the said Mark S. Skiff, Jr., did not accept such deed with the purpose or intention of hindering, delaying or defrauding the creditors of his father. The conveyance from the father to the son was voluntary.”

*689 For that reason the Circuit Court rendered a decree in favor of defendant Skiff.

Section 10170, Or. L., provides that every conveyance of any estate or interest in lands made with the intent to hinder, delay or defraud creditors, or other persons of their lawful suits, damages, debts or demands as against the person so hindered, delayed or defrauded, shall be void.

Section 10174, Or. L., directs as follows:

“The provisions of this chapter shall not be construed in any manner to affect or impair the title of a purchaser for a valuable consideration, unless it shall appear that such purchaser had previous notice of the fraudulent intent of his immediate grantor, or of the fraud rendering void the title of such grantor.”

It is clearly shown by the testimony that the defendant Mark S. Skiff, at the time of the execution of the deed in question, was heavily involved financially and that the execution of the deed would at lease hinder and delay plaintiff and the defendant bank in the collection of their demands against defendant Skiff.

Where a deed is made by a father to his son, when the deed is placed in evidence and the creditor’s indebtedness is established as existing at the time, a prima facie case is made out and the burden of proof is on the defendant grantee to show the bona fides of the transaction and that the conveyance was made for a valuable, adequate consideration. It is not enough for such a grantee to show that he had no previous notice of the fraudulent intent of his immediate grantor, but he must also show that he was a purchaser for a valuable consideration: Wright v. Craig, 40 Or. 191, 197 (66 Pac. 807).

*690 The defendants cite and rely upon Coffee v. Scott, 66 Or. 465 (135 Pac. 88). They have not brought themselves within the rule enunciated in that case. In the opinion in that case written by Mr. Justice Burnett, on page 472 we read:

“When the conveyance is made in good faith, and for a valuable consideration, so far as the grantee is concerned, the transaction is a closed incident; and it cannot affect him, even if the grantor should afterward waste his money in riotous living, or dispose of it contrary to the interest of the creditors.”

In the case of Coffee v. Scott, 66 Or. 465 (135 Pac. 88), it was shown that the conveyance sought to be set aside in fraud of creditors was executed in good faith and for a valuable consideration. The conveyance made by Mark S. Skiff to his son, who is a member of his family, while the father was heavily in debt, cast upon the grantee Mark S. Skiff, Jr., the burden of proving the conveyance was made for a valuable consideration, in good faith and without intent to defraud the creditors of the grantor: Hillsboro Nat. Bank v. Garbarino, 82 Or. 405, 410 (161 Pac. 703); Garnier v. Wheeler, 40 Or. 191, 201 (66 Pac. 812); Brown v. Case, 41 Or. 221, 233 (69 Pac. 43); Flynn v. Baisley, 35 Or. 268, 271 (57 Pac. 908, 76 Am. St. Rep. 495, 45 L. R. A. 645); Blackabee

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Bluebook (online)
248 P. 143, 118 Or. 685, 1926 Ore. LEXIS 122, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/willamette-grocery-co-v-skiff-or-1926.