Cecil Bank v. Snively

Bartol, J., delivered the opinion of this Court: The appellant, on the 14th February 1859, recovered a judgment in the Superior Court of Baltimore city, against ²⁵⁹ jj¿e and Welby, for $"$,026.00 anti eosv. .*ut! on the 22nd 'dddhiiréiií thereon, which was lit'<d,' , ni’fcjj; property " Baltimore city, known as the "⅝⅛ ■ .A ⅛⅛."' Lawrence Sniyely, the intestate of the ;i.y)jMi]Jue, intervened as claimant of the property, and having subsequently died, his administrator appeared, and was made party claimant in his stead. The verdict and judgment were in favor of the claimant. At the trial of the cause, four hills of exceptions were taken; th q first, third and fourth to the admission of certain evidence objected to by the appellant; and the second to the ruling of the Superior Court upon the prayers. The plaintiff produced in evidence the record of the judgment on which the attachment was issued, the deed of trust from Lee and Welby (the defendants in‘the judgment) to Price and Ridgway, and also the contract between Price and Ridgway, the trustees, and Lawrence Snively, made on the 2nd March 1859, whereby it appeared that the trustees had, on the 21st January 1859, sold to Lawrence Snively the property in question, for $4,980, payable one-fifth cash, and four-fifths in instalments of $996, in six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four months, with interest.

The cash instalment was paid, and the notes of Lawrence Snively were accepted to secure the deferred payments. Proof was then offered of the declarations of Lawrence Snively, to the effect that he was only nominally the purchaser, the purchase being in fact made for the use and benefit of Lee and Welby; that the payments which had been made of the purchase money, so far as it had been paid, were made by Lee and Welby, he, Lawrence Snively, claiming no interest in the property, and holding the contract only for the benefit of Lee and Welby, and as security for the unpaid balance of the purchase money. First hill óf Exceptions. — The claimant then offered in evidence a written lease, made by Lawrence Snively, at Philadelphia, on the 1st day of August 1859, to Samuel Adams, demising the property to Adams for the term of ²⁶⁰ three years, at yearly rent of $2,000. This evidence being objected to by the plaintiffaSRffafej§sfefe7itF3&mission by the Court forms the subject of the first bill of exceptions.

The appellant, in support of this exception, has argued in this Court that the lease is res inter alios; and further, that to receive it in evidence, would be to admit the mere declarations of a party to be offered in his favor, and thus allow him to manufacture evidence for himself. We do not assent to the force of these objections. One of the grounds on which the claim of Lawrence Snively to the property was assailed by the plaintiff, was that his purchase of it was a mere colorable and fraudulent pretence to cover up and conceal from the creditors of Lee and Welby their actual ownership; the lease was admissible to rebut the charge of fraud, and as evidence of an act of ownership exercised over the.property by L. Snively. A point-very much like this was settled in the case of Waters’ Lessee vs. Riggin, 19 Md. Rep., 536 .

The question of the fraud or bonafides of the lease was exclusively for the jury to decide upon all the proof; but, in our opinion, there was no error in allowing it to be given in evidence to the jury. The third Exception. — For the same reasons we affirm the ruling of the Superior Court upon the third exception. The contract made with Adams, the lessee, testified to by Wheatley, was admissible evidence; leaving the question of fraud or bona fides to be decided by the jury. Second bill of Exceptions. — Upon the state of facts disclosed in the first and second bills of exceptions, which we have already briefly stated, the question arises, whether the defendants, Lee and Welby, had an attachable interest in the property,, or, in other words, whether the evidence is sufficient in law to establish a trust in their favor?

This question is raised by the prayers. The whole difficulty, in this part of the case, grows out of the provisions of the statute of frauds, which require declarations and creations of trusts in lands to be manifested ²⁶¹ and proved Ly writing. But trusts which, arise by implication or construction of law, aro, by the words of the statute, expressly excepted from its operation, and may be proved by parol. “Such a trust arises where one party purchases an estate and pays the money, but takes a deed in the name of another; there a trust results by construction of law to the man who paid the money. The payment of the money is the foundation of the trust.” Dorsey vs. Clarke,