Case ID: wright_1/html/0779-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "COLLETT, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

BELL v. HALLENBACK, ET AL.
    Child’s wages — invested in real estate — subject to father’s debts — fraud.
    A father has a right to the custody and earnings of his minor children, and if he invest their earnings in real estate, and take a title to them, the estate will be charged with the debts he then owed.
    If the father have other property to satisfy the judgment, he should so describe it that it may be reached.
    Chancery. The bill prays execution of two judgments against Hal'lenback, execution having been taken out and returned nulla bona. It claims that Hallenback purchased two lots of ground, paid for them, and took the deed to his children,-one aged fourteen, and the other ten years. The answer of Hallenback .admits t-h-e judgment, execution, purchase of the lots, .and payment and deed, but he alleges that his boys earned the money and he invested it for them, and that he has other property in Licking-county.
    The proof is, that the father purchased, and paid for the lots, built a bouse upon them, took the deed to the boys, and has ever since exercised acts of ownership over them, and said be purchased for himself. The boys worked with their father on the canal, under bis direction, and were supported by him.
    
      Olds, for the complainant,
    insisted upon his right to charge the judgment upon the lots, and that the earnings of the child while supported by the father belonged to the father.
    
      Caldwell and Inin, contra,
    insisted the father merely took the earnings of bis children in trust, to be invested for them, and cited 1 Blk. C. 453; 2 Kent C. 194; 12 Mass. 375; 15 Mass. 174.
   COLLETT, C. J.

The father as the natural guardian of his children is bound to support them, and as an equivalent, the law gives him the custody of their persons during minority, and entitles him to their labor, or their wages, if they labor for others. In the present case, the earnings of the children, while working with him and ^supported by him, was his. If, therefore, that money alone [7;52 purchased and improved the lots, it was bis, and he could not by investing it in the name of his children, secure it for .them or himself, to the prejudice of his creditors. As to the -property mentioned in Licking county there is no proof. The judgment will he charged on the lots, if not satisfied, and a sale will he decreed for that purpose.