Case ID: pa_211/html/0123-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Pee Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

McBrerty, Appellant, v. Hyde.
    
      Deed—Fraudulent conveyance—Reconveyance—Equity.
    
    Where a person makes a deed of real estate in order to cheat his creditors, and subsequently directs his grantee to convey the land to a third person with whom the original owner has an arrangement by which such person is to make advances and reconvey the land when the advances have been repaid, the original owner has no standing in equity to compel the heirs of the person who made the advances to reeonvey the premises to himself. The original fraud affects the whole transaction.
    Argued Jan. 23, 1905.
    Appeal, No. 134, Jan. T., 1904, by plaintiff, from decree of C. P. No. 1, Phila. Co., Dec. T., 1901, No. 1477, dismissing bill in equity in case of Charles Mc-Brerty v. Mary B. Hyde et al. and the City of Philadelphia.
    Before Mitchell, C. J., Fell, Brown, Mesteezat and Elkin, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Bill in equity to compel a reconveyance of land. Before BrÉG-Y, J.
    The opinion of the Supreme Court states the case.
    
      Error assigned was the decree of the court.
    
      E. Spencer Miller, and George Tucker Bispham, for appellant.
    
      Walter Thomas Fahy, Eorace M. Bumsey, with them Thomas A. Fahy, for appellees.
    March 6, 1905:
   Pee Curiam,

The learned judge below after finding the facts in detail summed up his conclusion as follows; “ As I have found the facts, this is the situation: The plaintiff being insolvent and about to fail in business, put the property at Twenty-fourth and Spring Gardon streets in the name of one Hannah McHenry, to cheat his creditors. This was in July, 1888two days afterwards he confessed judgment largely in excess of the value of the property. Hannah McHenry held the property for him till March, 1890, when, at Mr. McBrerty’s request, she conveyed it to Mr. Hyde. Hyde ivas to carry it, pay the building association dues, and other charges, and receive the rents; when the building association stock matured and the mortgage of 13,000 thus became paid and satisfied, a new loan was to be created and Hyde paid whatever was coming to him, then the property was to be reconveyed to McBrerty.

“Hyde died about the time the shares matured. This is an effort to have his heirs reconvey on payment to them of whatever was due Hyde. The promise to reconvey was a verbal one. The scheme was to get back in 1897, or thereabouts, property he had conveyed in 1888 in fraud of his creditors.

“ The conveyance to Hyde was a continuation of the fraudulent object in view at the time of the conveyance to Mrs. McHenry. The law will not enforce agreements made under such circumstances.

“ The fraud at the beginning of the transaction continues through it all, and I decline to enforce the agreement to re-convey that Mr. Hyde made.

“ Let a decree be drawn dismissing the bill—each side to pay his own costs.”

The findings are justified by the evidence and fully sustain the conclusion. Decree affirmed.