Court Opinion

ID: 9811410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:19:23.936056+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:27.579696
License: Public Domain

Clare, J.,
dissenting.
The plaintiff alleges and testifies that in June, 1884, the defendant, J. H. Brinkley, promised her orally that if she would marry him he would convey to her one-half interest in the 'land in controversy as soon as the marriage had taken place, and relying upon such promise, she agreed to marry him. On 12th of July, 1884, the defendant, J. IT. Brinkley, conveyed the entire tract of land by war-rantee deed to his children by a former marriage — who are his codefendants in this action. Said land had been conveyed by their grandfather, to- their mother and himself. This deed of July, 1884, was registered 1st of August, 1884. Thereafter, on October 30, 1884, the plaintiff and the defendant, J. EL Brinkley, were married. On 23d of April. 1900, the defendant, J. EL Brinkley, executed a deed to the plaintiff, which was recorded 26th of April, 1900. On April 25, 1900, she instituted this' action, alleging in her complaint that the defendants (other than Joseph IT. Brinkley, her husband) wrongfully withhold possession of the premises, and asking that she be lelfc into possession as tenant in common of one-balf interest' therein.
There are several insuperable reasons why the plaintiff can not recover:
1. Tf the action is on the deed, 'that of the. defendants from her husband, executed 12th of July, 1884, and recorded 1st of August, 1884, takes precedence of that from her husband to herself, executed when he wias out of possession, 23d of April, 1900, and registered after this action was begun.
2. If the acbiion is on the parol promise in June, 1884, it is void under the Statute of Erauds, and though the husband, of course, does not sat it up, the other defendants do plead it. Though third parties, if strangers, can not plead the Statute *512of Frauds, it is otherwise as to privies, as are the defendants, the grantees in the deed of 1884. Browne on Statute of Frauds, sec. 135; Best v. Davis, 44 Ill. App., 624.
3. The grantees received fr'om their father a conveyance of this land, which came from their mother’s father. There was a good moral, indeed a meritorious consideration. Such a conveyance would not be a fraud, even though concealed from the intended wife. Green v. Goodall, 41 Tenn. (1 Cold.), 404; Herr on Fraud and Mistake, 218. If the father had immediately after the second marriage conveyed to the plaintiff, she would not have been a purchaser for value. 12 Am. and Eng. Enc. (2d Ed.), 472 n, 8, and cases there cited, which hold such to be a voluntary deed. The deed to the children of the first marriage having been recorded August 1, 1884, sire was fixed with notice thereof at least as much as a purchaser for value would have been. Tt was her misfortune that ninety days after such registration she entered the marriage, after it had become impossible for' her husband to> convey to her any part of the land.
But put it in tire strongest possible light for the plaintiff: Suppose the marriage, 30th of October, 1884, was ipso facto-a conveyance for value of a half interest in the land to the-plaintiff, and further that the dead to the childreir of the former marriage was not for a meritorious consideration and was without any consideration, tire deed recorded on 1st of August, 1884, 'though voluntary, would take precedence of a deed to a subsequent purchaser for value. This is settled, by many decisions. “In the United States, the authorities-are almost unanimous in holding that a voluntary conveyance, if made bona -fide, is valid against a subsequent purchaser-with notice of the conveyance.” 14 Am. and Eng. Enc. (2d Ed.), 466. In .this State, since the adoption of chapter 28,. Laws 1840, one who- purchases with notice of a prior voluntary conveyance will not be protected against it. Triplett v. *513Witherspoon, 70 N. C., 589; Clement v. Cozart, 112 N. C., at page 421. Registration of a prior voluntary deed is notice to a subsequent purchaser. Taylor v. Eatman, 92 N .C., 601.
Viewed, aside from the faet that the legal title has. been in the children of the first wife since July, 1884, and the alleged promise to. plaintiff to convey was in parol and a secret promise, there is non evidence to explain why the plaintiff, nor her husband, took any steps after the marriage to execute any conveyance to her, nor -why the plaintiff acquiesced in the non-execution of the secret parol agreement for nearly sixteen years. No evidence was offered that she at any time, during all these years, had called upon her husband to execute the promised conveyance, nor made any complaint in regard to the matter. lit is not an explanation of this fact that during all that time, up. to January, 1900, the plaintiff and her htis-band lived on the land together with the children of the first marriage. There was no reservation for the benefit of the husband in his deed of July 12, 1884, 'and his remaining on the land was probably by reason of the non-age of said children or some of them, and permissive thereafter as to those who became of age. His possession was at no time adverse-. Why Joseph H. Brinkley is made a defendant does not appear. He is not in possession and he is not resisting the plaintiff’s claim, but is siding with her.
Even if this action had been for dower, the plaintiff could not recover, unless the deed was made with intent to- defraud ber dower rights, for at no time during Coverture has her husband been seized of the premises. Barnes v. Raper, 90 N. C., 189. If by Ms death, dower therein would not accrue to his wife, certainly if living he can not convey to her. The Count properly held that upon the testimony the plaintiff could not recover. Her husband conld not have recovered, no matter when he brought suit, nor what Ms motive in making the deed. York v. Merritt, 80 N. C., 285; McManus v. *514Tarleton, 126 N. C., 790. The plaintiff not being a creditor at the date of the deed has no greater rights than the husband would have had. Hiatt v. Wade, 30 N. C., 340; Taylor v. Eatman, 92 N. C., at page 606; Clement v. Cozart, 112 N. C., at page 421.
It must not be overlooked that the question here presented is not whether by the engagement to marry in June, 1884-, the wife became invested with an inchoate right of dower (the on/ly interest she could acquire by the marriage itself), which could not be divested by the deed in July, 1884, to the children of the first marriage. The wife’s position is certainly not stronger by virtue of her engagement than after marriage, and if this deed to the children had been made after marriage, instead of before, they would have gotten a good title, subject only to 'the widow’s con'tingenit right of dower if she survived her husband. Scott v. Lane, 109 N. C., 154. Here, he is sifcil'l living, and as she could mot maintain this action of ejectment against one faking under a deed after marriage, she certainly can not recover dower by virtue of her’ marital rights against grantees taking’ long before marriage. Her right to dower can not now arise.
This case resits upon tire single proposition whether one who -takes a verbal agreement tto convey realty, upon a consideration thereafter -to be paid, can recover the same sixteen years thereafter against those who took a conveyance of the same land for a meritorious consideration, without participation in the fraud, if any, perpetrated upon the intended wife, and without any legal notice thereof (being minor's), and when the deed to them' was registered three months before the marriage, when therefore the purchaser by oral contract bad the fullest legal notice bef ore payment of -the promised consideration.
The cases cited in tire opinion which protect the rights of an intending husband in his wife’s property have no applica*515tion to this case, where the plaintiff claims not as a widow, but by virtue- o-f a secret oral contract to convey in consideration of marriage, and the defendant® aire purchasers for a meritotrious consideration and without nioitice. If the plaintiff can sustain her claim founded solely on a secret verbal agreement, then no other purchaser from a single mían, without notice of a secret agreement with an intending wife, can hold the land against her, though, as here, sixteen years may have passed without the husband and wife remembering to execute the promised deed and malting known the ante-nuptial agreement. The plaintiff’s claim is not based upon a fraud u.pon her marital rights. She is nolfc suing for dower, but upon defeat of an oral promise to convey realty by a deed made to another up'on a meritorious consideration without notice of her oral agreement, and duly registered before s'he pays the promised consideration. She relies upon a verbal contract and stands like any other. Her marriage is purely incidental and does not add to her contractual rights.
In Poston v. Gillespie, 58 N. C., 258; 15 Am. Dec. 421, it was the husband who was complaining that his contracted wife had in fraud conveyed aiway all her property. As the law then stood, at the moment of marriage, he became entitled to all her- personal property and tenant by the curtesy initiate of her realty. For deprivation thereof, by undue influence of her father, he had an -immediate canse of action. Here, the wife could acquire by virtue of the marriage nothing except a right, to dower’ if she survived her husband, and has as yet not suffered, and may never suffer. anything by virtue of the deed to the defendants. And even ?n that case, 'the decision is largely rested upon the ground that the deed by the wife was made by duress and undue influence exerted by her* father. That is in no particular an authority for this- ease.
In Taylor v. Rickman, 45 N. C., 278, the deed was set *516aside for surprise, the marriage contract not being mentioned •till the husband stood up to be married; and besides, it was never registered as required by law. The husband was thus deprived as above stated of an immediiate absolute right to the personalty, and, on account of the surprise, the deed was declared void. The same is true of Tiesdale v. Bailey, 41 N. O., 358, and Spencer v. Spencer, 56 N. C., 404, in both of which cases the deed was made by the wife secretly and with the intent to defraud her husband (which is not found in the present case) just before the marriage and kept secret, not recorded. Unlike the wife in this: case, the husband was in those oases thereby deprived of an immediate right of property.
In every case cited for 'the plaintiff, the husband was the plaintiff and was deprived of an immediate right of property by the deed. None of '(hose actions could now be maintained as >the law noiw stands a® to the property rights of women whose personalty remains their own property. Certainly they can not be authority for one who claims, not marital rights, but by virtue of an oral contract to convey lands, which were conveyed and legal notice thereof given her by registration three months before the marriage, and who is attempting to set up a stale claim under such oral contract (if ever made) 'after sixteen year's acquiescence.
The plaintiff sues to recover a fee-simple iu half the land. A woman’s “marital rights” in her husband’s property are-derived solely friom statute^ and no statute gives her a half interest in-fee of her husband’s land, and that too before his. death. She has therefore no support in the claim that she has been deprived of hex marital rights by fraud or otherwise, for she has not been. Her sole claim is that she made an oral contract for conveyance of land and 'three months before the-consideration was paid the land was conveyed to another for a meritorious consideration, without notice of her claim and *517the deed duly recorded Wbicb was notice to ber, and the grantees plead the Statute of Frauds, as they bare a right to do. That the consideration promised was marriage, makes it a valuable consideration, but no more s:o- than if money had been promised and paid after the registration of the deed to another, for meritorious consideration, and who took without notice. That marriage was to be the consideration does not involve “marital rights” in this matter, nor take this verbal contract out of the Statute of Frauds', nor affect the fact, that the defendant’s deed was registered sixteen years ago' and plaintiff’s deed from her husband only since action brought. The plaintiff’s claim is contractual, not marital, and there is no exception in 'tire Statute of Frauds in her favor and the Court can not create one.