Court Opinion

ID: 9808925
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:54:22.87379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:20:09.518312
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J.:
I concur in the judgment in this case, but not in the argument. The plaintiff’s trustor, J. 0. Lassiter, executed to the plaintiff a deed of trust conveying his stock of merchandise, with other personal property, to secure his creditors, preferring a debt for $2500 to Norman & Everett. This preferred debt is admitted to be sufficiently large to absorb the assets after setting aside the lawful exemptions. The defendant, acting as constable, seized the property under execution, which was taken back by the plaintiff under claim and delivery proceedings.
This cause has been twice before this Court, reported in 111 N. C., 206, and in 114 N. C., 228, on a petition to rehear.
*134The only difference as far as I can see between the case as now constituted and as it was on the former trial is that the preferred debt to Norman & Everett, the bona fides of which was then apparently admitted, is now contested. This is a material difference, and throws the original burden upon the plaintiff to show the bona fides of the deed of trust under which he claims. This he must do by showing the actual existence of the debts secured thereby, or at least of a sufficient amount in number or value to satisfy the jury that the deed was not intended ás a colorable security for fictitious debts, but was made with the honest intent of securing real debts. Every deed, whether in trust, or of absolute conveyance, requires an adequate,, valuable consideration to support it as against purchasers or preditors. Feimster v. McRorie; 34 N. C., 287; Hodges v. Lassiter, 96 N. C., 351. These authorities, along with numerous others, lay down the well established rule that such- débts having been proved or admitted, the burden of proof then shifts to those seeking to attack the deed aliunde. If the alleged fraud appears upon the face of the deed it becomes a question of law; but in the case at bar the deed of trust is admitted to be in all respects regular in form. I think that the debts, whose validity must be shown, should belong to that class really intended to be secured, in this case being the debt of Norman & Everett which dominates the trust and absorbs the assets. To hold such a deed valid simply because it professed to secure certain debts admittedly honest but postponed to a class beyond any possibility of payment,' would be a judicial invitation to the perpetration of fraud. As the burden rested upon the plaintiff to show the existence of the Norman & Everett debt, there was error on the *135pai’t of his Honor in directing a verdict upon the first issue. Spruill v. Ins. Co., 120 N. C., 141, and cases therein cited.
Much of the defendant’s argument involved practically a rehearing of the matters decided in the former opinion of this Court, which has already been once reheard. As far as that opinion applies to the case as now constituted, it is the law of the case, and I do not feel at liberty to review it. It should also be borne in mind that any opinion concurred in by a majority of the Court becomes the opinion of the Court, and remains the individual opinion of the justice delivering it only in so far as it may treat of matters not properly before the Court or not necessary to the determination of the case.