Case ID: tenn_26/html/0444-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Reese, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Embry & Young vs. Robinson and Wife.
    When a husband, by virtue of a marriage settlement, gets into his possession the estate of the wife, which did not pass by virtue of tho, marital right, under a promise to secure it to the wife, creditors of the husband cannot reach such estate be" cause the deed of settlement was unregistered. The Court of Chancery will protect her rights.
    Embry & Young and other creditors, on the 20th July, 1841, in the Circuit Court of Franklin county,.ohtained a judgment against Robinson, upon which executions were issued and returned nulla hona.
    
    In February, 1844, this bill was filed in the Chancery Court at Winchester, by the said creditors against Robinson and wife, Eliza. It sets forth the above, judgments and returns of the executions, and charges, that Robinson had conveyed several parcels of real estate and other property to Hutchins, in trust, for the use of his wife, Eliza; on the pretended ground that he was indebted to his wife, and that said conveyances were without consideration, fraudulent and void as against creditors.
    The defendants answered. They state, that in contemplation of marriage, on the 17th day of February, 1840, an agreement was made and executed, by which the estate of the said Eliza was settled on her, to be disposed of as she thought proper; and that the conveyance was duly registered on the 30th day of September, 1840. The conveyances of the estate to Hutchins by Robinson were made before the judgments were obtained by the creditors and duly registered. The conveyances to Hutchins were for the benefit of his wife, and intended to restore to her the sum of six or seven thousand dollars, belonging to the wife before marriage, appropriated by him to the payment of his debts.
    The presiding Chancellor gave a decree for the defendants and dismissed the bill. From this decree the complainants appealed. .
    
      Fogg, for the complainants.
    
      Taul and Whitesides, for the defendants.
   Reese, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

This bill is filed by certain creditors of defendant Robinson, to set aside conveyances made by Robinson to Hutchins, in trust for the separate use of Mrs. Robinson, on the ground of fraud. The answers deny the fraud, and set forth an ante-nuptial contract, which is exhibited,' and stipulates, that the then property of the intended wife, shall, after marriage, continue to be her own, free from the debts of the husband; and the answers state, that the husband, after the marriage, received in the State of Kentucky, from the. executor of the wife’s former husband, six or seven thousand dollars, which were applied to the payment of the husband’s pre-existing debts, in consequence of which the conveyances in question, were made.

The proof shows these allegations to be true, and that the marriage contract, the reception of the money in Kentucky, and the conveyances from Robinson to Hutchins,-the trustee of the wife, all took place before the complainants obtained their judgments. The validity of the registration of the conveyances to Hutchins is not called in question.

The Chancellor decreed that those conveyances were not fraudulent, but, on the contrary, were fair, and sustained by a good and valuable consideration. The bill was dismissed, and the complainants have appealed to this court.

And it is contended in their behalf here, not that the conveyances to Mrs. Robinson are fraudulent and void, as contrary to the statutes of Elizabeth, but that the ante-nuptial contract has not been properly registered, according to the manner directed in the 2d section of the act of 1831, ch. 90; and said contract being as if unregistered altogether, the said act makes it void against the creditors of the husband, and also the conveyances founded upon the rights which it created.

Wo are not called upon, as this case presents itself to our minds, to determine whether the'registration in question be valid by the terms of the 2d section of the act of 1831: and, if valid, what construction is to be given to that act, in reference to the creditors of the husband: because,

1st. The property in question does not belong to the wife by operation of the marriage contract, but by force of the conveyances to her trustee, and if those conveyances are founded upon good considerations, and the property at the time of the conveyances was unaffected by liens of the complainants, the complainants will not be entitled to set them aside, although able to show, that the marriage contract was not so registered, as to repel the claims.

2d. Because, if there had been no marriage contract in this case, the marital rights of the husband would not have attached to the wife’s distributive share in Kentucky; and that fund the husband could by no act of his own reduce into possession: it could not be approached by his creditors, and he could only have come into its possession by the act of his wife. It was a fund, which a Court of Chancery, at the instance of the wife, would have settled upon her, even if the husband had been overwhelmed with judgments and executions: and, the rather, because so overwhelmed. If, then, the husband, by virtue of a marriage settlement — good as between husband and wife at all events — gets into possession, for her benefit, her funds, not passing to him by operation of the marital right, under a promise to vest it for her separate benefit, and does so; upon what ground can any creditors of the husband, and especially creditors having, at the time of the conveyance, no legal advantage by operation of judgment aliens seek in a Court of Chancery to divest the wife of her legal and equitable estate? Surely there is no principle to be found in the act of 1831, or elsewhere, to sustain such a claim. On the contrary, it seems to us, that the claim is repelled by every principle of justice and equity.

Creditors are favorites of a Court of Chancery, and will be aided in the collection of their just debts, but only from those who justly owe them. The wife, with reference to her separate property, is not the debtor of the husband’s creditors, and such separate property, honestly and fairly the wife’s, a Court of Chancery will anxiously protect.

Let the decree be affirmed.