Opinion
10-16-1889
STILLWELL v. STILLWELL.
Throckmorton & Haight, for complainant. McDermott & Nevins, for defendant.
Throckmorton & Haight, for complainant. McDermott & Nevins, for defendant.
BIRD, V. C. I think the allegations in the bill in this case have not been sustained.
1. There was no declaration of trust in the deed by which the property was conveyed to the complainant's husband, nor was there any other declaration of trust in writing. The only evidence of any trust is the statement of the complainant and of her mother, made for the first time when the bill was filed, or since and after the death of the husband, to whom the property was conveyed in 1864.
2. There is no evidence of any claim that the husband held the title to the property in question in trust from the time it was deeded to him in 1864, until 1882, a period of 18 years, when he made a conveyance of the title to his mother-in-law, who immediately conveyed it to the complainant. It is impossible for me to conclude that all this period of time should have passed without some clear and distinct claim upon the part of the wife that her husband held this property in trust for her, and an acknowledgment upon his part that such claim was true. All the circumstances in the case which are insisted upon as showing some such right in behalf of the complainant are fully counterbalanced by circumstances showing that the husband regarded and treated the property as his own.
3. When, in 1882, the husband transferred the title to the complainant, he did not do it because of any claim against him as trustee on the part of his wife as beneficiary, but because he had with others indorsed a promissory note, and had thereby become liable for the payment of a certain sum of money. Now, it impresses me most strongly that if there ever was even the slightest understanding that the title was to be held by the husband in trust for the complainant she would have based her claim to a conveyance of the title to her upon that ground, surer and stronger by far, because not illegal or fraudulent, rather than upon the ground of pecuniary liability upon the part of the husband.
4. And after she held the title for two years, and this court had declared the conveyance to her fraudulent and void as against creditors, and it is about to be sold in order to satisfy the judgment against her husband, and she has a conference with the counsel of her husband about it, she even then makes no claim to any superior right over her husband, because the property was always hers in fact, he having held it in trust for her, and that the conveyance to her in 1882 was but a performance of his obligations to convey.
5. Although it clearly appears already, yet it is sufficiently important to make the distinction more clearly, the complainant never made any assertion of her claims until after the death of her husband, and, it may with great propriety be added, nor until after the death of the grantor.
6. Because the testimony upon the part of the complainant shows that if there ever was any understanding that the husband was to hold the title in trust for the wife the deed was taken in his name rather to give him credit as a business man, and for that purpose excluding from the deed the declaration of the trust. It also shows that he thereby acquired a credit. And they distinctly assert, as already intimated, that they sought to have the title made to his wife because he had become liable for the payment of $162. These things are all fraudulent in the law, and the law never helps any one who becomes involved in such a transaction. 1 will advise that the bill be dismissed, with costs.